


Watch and Burn

by Transformatron



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Flight lessons, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon, Starscream's the teacher, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Teacher-Student Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension, but only just, canon-typical abuse, he doesn't want to be but he doesn't get a choice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2019-10-11 07:44:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17442767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transformatron/pseuds/Transformatron
Summary: Megatron returns from Cybertron with a new aerial alt-mode, and forces Starscream to give him a crash-course in flying.Unfortunately, they take 'crash' to be literal.





	1. Lesson 1: Crash Landing

**Author's Note:**

> **New fic, because my other longfic is Too Damn Complicated and I don't have the energy to write more right now.**

"Starscream!"

Ah. His master had returned. No one else roared his designation with such unquenchable fury - or at least, not  _before_ he'd done anything to deserve it.

Starscream sunk into a bow as Megatron approached. Streaks of burnt polish striped the Warlord's vast shoulder guards. He must've driven through an acid storm before crossing the space bridge to inspect their foul new world.

Having traipsed around said foul, muddy, horrifically  _organic_ world for the better part of a lunar-cycle now, Starsceam missed the stinging flurries of Cybertronian rain. The  _Nemesis's_ solvent showers never seemed strong enough to strip the dust from his gears. While an acid storm would ruin his finish, it'd be worth it to feel clean again.

"My lord. I trust your mission to locate a new alt-mode was a success?"

"You will meet me on the flight deck in a joor.” Not an answer. It seemed the Mighty Megatron didn't deem his Second in Command worthy of reply. “And Starscream?”

Starscream jumped, hastily smoothing his scowl. “Yes, my lord?”

“You will be alone."

That was that. Megatron walked away. While his gait was unhurried, the floor of the _Nemesis's_ command deck still rattled with each fall of his pedes.

Shivers jittered up Starscream's slim ankle struts. He told himself they were from the vibrations; nothing to do with fear.

"Y-yes, My Lord. It would be my pleasure.”

Lies, of course. Whatever Megatron thought him guilty of, whatever punishment lay in wait, Starscream suspected _pleasure_ would be the last thing on his mind.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The only problem was, as he trudged to the mess hall for his morning cube, he couldn't think of what he'd _done._

Megatron had been away for several solar-cycles, foraging through the battlefields left on Cybertron's pitted crust, scanning cadaver after cadaver in his quest for a suitable alt. He'd left leadership in Starscream's capable servos - and Starscream had performed with verve and vim. Why, they hadn't lost a single soldier!

Admittedly, they hadn't sourced any new energon deposits either. But caution was a valued tactic - and one Lord Megatron, when left to his own devices, sorely lacked.

Criticisms of his Master regardless, this lick of authority had smoothed Starscream's proverbial feathers. He'd been on his best behavior! Not even Soundwave, that overbearing watchdog, could have any treachery to report.

So why - why in the pit! - had Megatron ordered him to _meet him alone?_

Starscream shook his helm. No point fretting about it. Best just get it over with.

Lie back, think of Vos. Have Knock Out prepare the medbay in advance.

Grimly downing his rations, he sent the medic a private ping. Then he delivered his cube to the recycler, and – feeling like a prisoner of war on his way to the smelting pits – started the long march to the top deck.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Megatron awaited him. He stood with his back to the lift, servos clasped behind him, admiring the play of sunlight over the horizon line of their grotty new world.

He had already dismissed the Vehicons on patrol. The pair of them were the only sparks left on this level. With the exception of Soundwave's ever-present cameras, there was no one to bear witness to whatever horrors the Warlord might inflict on his poor, undeserving lieutenant.

Starscream dithered in the doorway. One dainty pede clinked on the edge of the lift, the other on the chrome floor beyond. His wings sunk to their lowest; he forced them valiantly up.

He refused to broadcast his terror. Whatever sin Megatron thought he'd committed, he was, for once, mistaken.

Starscream would not snivel. Starscream would not beg. If Megatron wished to punish him for imagined slights, so be it! Starscream would bear his beating, and commend his spark to the martyrs of the old sky-city: those who perished when Vos burned.

Or he'd jet overboard at the first sign of trouble. Yes, that sounded preferable. It wasn't like the old slagger could chase him.

"Starscream."

"Yes?" No stutter - a success.

"Approach me."

Starscream did. He picked his way over the cracks and hatches stamped into the _Nemesis's_ crust. He held his breath as he entered Megatron's radius, within grasping reach of those huge, clawed hands, not quite daring to take that final step to bring himself and his Master level.

"My liege?"

Megatron's sneer was a terrible thing. His dentae flashed sharper than an insecticon's fangs; his optics crackled red as dying stars. "I have a task for you, my Second."

Starscream’s wings drooped, despite him willing them to the contrary. Still, a chore - no matter how demeaning - was better than being punched through the nearest bulkhead. It meant another chance for failure, yes. But a chance to excel too! Starscream was nothing if not convinced of his own prowess.

"And how may I serve?"

"Teach me to fly."

Starscream froze. "What."

Megatron cranked up a brow ridge. "I have acquired a new alt-mode. I wish to learn how to use it."

"You have, you - a - a..." Starscream couldn't keep his disbelief from his tone. "A... flight model, my liege?"

Surely he hadn't been so foolish! Few natural-sparked jets could take to the air while making accommodations for Megatron's hefty gladiatorial plating. For a miner-construct to attempt the same...

Frankly, it'd be a miracle of Primus if the lumber-head got off the ground.

Megatron had never been fond of repeating himself. He strode for the edge of the _Nemesis._ "This was not a request. You will teach me, Starscream. _Now._ "

"Wait, wait." Starscream's processor was whirling. "You want _me?_ To teach you to _fly?_ "

"For the last time - "

"In a single _day?_ "

Megatron glowered at him then, over one jagged cliff of a shoulder. His eyes were almandine slits. "No, Starscream. In a _joor._ "

Starscream's mouth fell open. A word fell out. "Impossible."

Megatron's eyes thinned further. "I dislike 'impossible'."

"Well - it doesn't really matter what you _like,_ does it?"

Scrap, he hadn't meant to snap. But Megatron didn't snarl. He studied Starscream, waiting for him to elaborate.

Starscream, gaining some minor confidence from his continued function, angled his wings up once more. "This isn't a matter of _innate talent,_ my lord. A skill cannot be snatched at. It must be strived for. Flying... flying is one of the greatest skills known to Cybertronian kind!”

"I do not need to engage in your Seeker-style of aerial ballet."

Starscream's faceplates heated. "It's not -"

"All I need is to take to the air, perform evasive manoeuvres, and land. Preferably without off-lining myself." Megatron stopped at the precipice of the flight deck, tossing a smirk back at his Lieutenant. "Do you think you can handle that?"

A challenge. Oh, Starscream longed to meet it.

But... No! Megatron was setting him up! If Starscream played this game, he would lose. Inevitably, laughably, miserably.

He hadn't lied. Learning to fly in a joor? Ridiculous! There was simply _no way_ it could be done! Not even if your student was a diligent, obedient mech, with the fleetest processor known to all of Cybertron.

Megatron didn't hit those first two specifications, and, as proven by this latest stunt, he was very far from the third.

Starscream bowed, fanning his wings in feigned submission. Any _true_ flier would recognise the gesture as a defensive one, so that he could roll into a transformation and blast away should Megatron take this poorly.

"My apologies," he began. Surprise flickered across the Warlord's faceplates. Had he really expected Starscream to bite? "What you speak of still requires an affinity for reading the movements of the air. It is not as simple as, say, strapping a jetpack to a groundpounder – I, uh, mean a vehicular-frametype _.._."

"No need to watch your language. I am not a groundpounder anymore."

Starscream swallowed his snort. It wasn't that simple. A grounder – like Megatron, accustomed to turning into a heavyweight Cybertronian gun-tank – might scan an aerial frame. But he would never know what it meant to be sparked of the sky. He would never lust for it, yearn for its tender caresses on his wings. And he would never, ever achieve a _modicum_ of a Seeker's grace.

But, as Megatron made clear, _grace_ wasn't the desired result. Starscream wasn't sure it even featured in his vocabulary.

What was his alternative? Let _Soundwave_ take over Megatron's tutoring?

Unacceptable. If their Lord was to fly, he would do it to Starscream's standards, not those of a glorified drone.

Starscream donned a slinky smile. "Very well, My Lord. I can endeavour to teach you the... _basics._ But I suspect you have been ambitious in your targets. Were I instructing a class of initiates for the Seeker trials -"

"Which you are not," Megatron reminded him.

"- I would still stress the importance of flight fundamentals. Those can take lunar-cycles to learn, and _vorns_ to gain mastery over."

Megatron hummed. He considered his options, pitting his own clumsy miner-frame against the svelte, sharp forms of Vos's brightest and best, all of whom had been designed in their protoform-stage for aerial dominance. And, of course, he deemed himself superior.

"You have a pentacycle," he announced. "We will meet here and train for five joors each morning, starting from today."

Starscream's wings were sagging again. "Do I get a choice in this?"

Megatron's glare said it all. _Do you even need to ask?_

Starscream tried again. "And what, my liege, if, come the end of this-" _ludicrous, idiotic_ "-tight timeframe, you are still not competent in flight?"

Megatron's smirk had bathed in the energon of countless foes. The scars on his face creased to make way for it, revealing one fang after the next. "Oh, but I am confident in the prowess of my tutor."

Starscream released a nervous snigger.

No doubt about it. He was doomed.

Would Megatron at least have the decency to make it quick, once the week had passed? No - his Master had always taken a cruelly karmic view on punishment. If Starscream lost this gamble, his wings would be wrenched off at the root, and he would be wedged into the smallest cell in the _Nemesis_ brig until flight-withdrawal left him gibbering, sobbing, scratching open his own _lines_... 

Starscream swallowed. He plastered on a smile, in the hopes it looked more confident than he felt.

"Well, we'd best get started. We have a lot of work ahead. Let's try a basic transformation, and - wait! What are you - no! A transformation _on deck!_ "

Too late. Megatron had already flung himself over the edge.

Starscream buried his helm in his hands. "Scrap."

Then he realized that he had yet to hear the ignition of an engine. And that his Master was still falling.

"...Double scrap."

He could, of course, let him plummet. The old fragger deserved it, if only for adding this most recent stress to Starscream's workload. But Megatron was almost as accomplished when it came to thwarting death as...

Well. As Starscream himself.

Starscream spent another five kliks bemoaning (in order) his Master's arrogance, his own naiveté for ever presenting his chestplates to be branded in the name of the Decepticon cause, this thin-atmosphered dust-bowl of a world, the _Nemesis,_ Soundwave, and anything else he could think of.

Then he went to save Megatron’s sorry aft. He didn’t dare hope he’d be grateful.

 

* * *

 

 

Starscream flipped off the  _Nemesis's_ deck, angling himself like a diver. He sliced through the air. His wings tucked close, streamlining his body.

Free fall. It was glorious, exhilarating. Nothing quite like it. But having spent several centuries commanding the most renowned Seeker squadron to ever hail from the City of Wings, Starscream knew how to chomp down on that instinctive awe. He worried it, grinding it to cold fury between his dentae.

First rule of Flight School.  _Listen to your instructor._

But since when did Lord Megatron ever listen to anyone but himself?

Starscream gained velocity. He cut the crosswinds like a javelin. He transformed – a single push, flexing out of his own plating. His body twisted, dislocated, reshuffling itself to form his secondary, yet no lesser, shape. The thruster lifted from the struts of his spine. High-grade, Seeker-strength energon churned in his fuel tank.

Combustion. Power.

Turbines roared. Starscream shot after Lord Megatron's rapidly dwindling shape. He broke the sound barrier with a boom Thundercracker would've been proud of.

His Master was, as he predicted, making an utter aft of himself. Failing to ignite his own thruster, the Warlord had flipped in the air, nosecone to the earth then nosecone to the sky, over and over in a dizzying spiral. He decided to transform back into bipedal mode - as if that would help! - and roared his wrath at the atmosphere for daring to conspire against him.

"Starscreeeeeeeeeeeeeeam!"

Or, just yelled at Starscream. No changes there.

"Old slagger," Starscream grumbled. He caught up within two seconds, decelerating to match Megatron's speed. Approximately thirty remained until impact – assuming that they kept descending at terminal velocity, of course.

Starscream ought to do something about that. He transformed, lashing out with his claws.

Megatron snarled. His processor would be spinning beneath that old rusty miner's helmet, convincing him that somehow, this was all Starscream's fault. That his second had  _manipulated him into this._ That he had followed him down to finish the job.

And Starscream  _could._ That was the worst thing. But frag it. If Megatron meant what he said about hunting down an army, it  _would_ make Starscream's future conquest of this planet easier. After he'd won them to  _his_  side, of course.

He dug his claws into the Warlord's chassis. He had to keep his legs out the way of his turbine before activating it in bipedal mode - the last thing he wanted was to scorch his ankle joints. And – blast! No other option.

 _He'd better not get the wrong idea,_ thought Starscream viciously, as he wrapped his legs around Megatron's waist.

The gladiator's sudden silence told him that was exactly what had happened. Starscream wished he had time to set the record straight, but that was one commodity they were swiftly running out of.

"Hold tight," gritted Starscream, in his Master's audial. "And  _do_ try not to get melted."

And with that, he activated his thruster.

 _Whoof._ Flames blazed out below, a hot smoking tail. Their descent steadied. Starscream could never hold Megatron's weight - not in the air, nor anywhere but microgravity. Still, he could stop his dizzying death-spiral.

The gyros in the Warlord's processing unit must thank him for it. Thick arms wrapped around Starscream. They didn't seem inclined to let go.

Unfortunately, that was requisite to their continued survival. Starscream flapped his wings, impatient.

"Master, you need to release me."

"You said to hold tight," said Megatron. The usual bass, velvet confidence had been banished from his timbre. His voice croaked like a pede crunching through gravel. He sounded very almost  _petulant._

Starscream found a smile creeping onto his face. He hastily forced it off again. Where in the blazes had  _that_ come from?

Whatever he and Megatron might once have cultivated, war had shot it dead – as it had so many of their comrades, their morals, and any other purpose but claiming victory _. Dominance._ Over everyone, including each other.

One little flying lesson wasn't going to change that. Like Starscream said, a single day wasn't enough.

The wind rushed by. He could barely hear his Master speak. He activated the internal comms, his voice diverted directly into Megatron’s helm.

"That was then," he explained. "This is  _now._ Let go of me."

"You're going to let me fall again."

"I'm not, I - I promise." How long had it been, since he last said those words? Well - not exactly vorns. But how long had it been since he  _meant_ them? Especially to  _this_ giant afthead?

Megatron scowled like he didn't believe him. Understandable, if offensive. And while ground approached with less urgency, it was still expanding, the horizon swelling until it painted an ugly, desert-brown stripe across Starscream's vision.

No. He refused for this to be the end! If he was going to off-line, it wouldn't be on  _this_ foul rock, that was for sure.

"Listen," he said, forcing his voice to remain level. "We'll simply skip a few days in your training. I was going to save crash landing for Day 3, but as you are so determined to prove yourself ahead of the curve..."

Megatron's optics widened. "Crash landing?"

Starscream hooked his claws into the creases between Megatron’s armour. He was all-too-aware of the vast fusion cannon, larger than his entire torso, strapped to the arm that kept him locked to Megatron's chest in this nauseating, faux-tender embrace.

He had to convince him of his intentions. Preferably, faster than they were falling.

"It's a vital lesson, Master! As we are about to find out! So  _please..._ " And here he was, begging again. "You have to let go of me! You have to  _trust_ me!"

Megatron scoffed - but his arms unpeeled. His weight dragged him away from Starscream. His glare, however, remained fixed to him. Smoldering, fiery, red as the Pit itself.

Starsceam psyched himself for the inevitable. Then he transformed and dived once more.

He flew level with Megatron, the both of them dropping at the same pace, Starscream's thruster to the sky. Then he  _scooped,_ flicking his nosecone forwards, bashing his Master hard behind the knees.

Megatron's roar was almost worth the agony when he drove his claws through Starscream's cockpit.

No time to gloat. Starscream could see the individual hoodoos and stacks rising from the crumbling sand. Megatron crushed into him, driving him down far faster than Starscream's thruster could compensate. So, he didn't  _try_ to go straight down. He shot off at an angle, diagonal, skirting past the desert formations on a sideways collision course.

"You said you would teach me how to crash land," said Megatron. His voice buzzed through Starscream when they were clasped together like this. It would very almost be pleasant, if Starscream wasn't aware of what came next.

"Yes, Master,” he growled. “Watch and learn."

 

Closer. Faster.

 

Ground rushing up to meet them.

 

Flashes. Brown dirt, rock, tarmac, rock again, more dirt, sand -

 

-fire-

 

-agony-

 

_Crunch._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Megatron stood above him. His shadow cut a dark slice from the baking sand. It fell over Starscream, pleasantly cool.

His foreboding silence stretched for so long that Starscream (who'd crumpled out of alt-mode after skidding across several miles of shrubs and badland) wondered how bad the damage was. Perhaps it was grievous enough that Megatron was toying with a mercy-kill.

Of course, the old slagger got away with barely a scratch. Blasted miner plating. Seekers were precision instruments, and - as Knock Out loved to remind Starscream - that came with a certain degree of  _fragility._

Knowing how to minimize impact damage had saved Starscream's spark on several occasions so far, but such endeavors were made considerably harder when you had a giant Warlord riding on your back.

Megatron reached up. Not to level his fusion cannon, but to activate the manual comm link on the side of his neck.

"Megatron to Soundwave. Groundbridge to my coordinates." A long pause, drawn out further by each rattle of Starscream's laboring, energon-speckled intakes. "Bring the medic."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

So, all in all, Lesson 1 had been a failure. One of abysmal proportions.

After being shrilly berated by Knock Out, there was nothing Starscream desired to do more than to relax on his medical berth and slip into recharge. Lord Megatron's shape, melding from the shadowed doorway, made that difficult.

Knock Out's optics popped wide. He stopped fussing and evacuated as fast as he could, ushering his assistant before him. "Come along, Breakdown. We just got an urgent ping from a vehicon on Deck, uh, F-4. Did you bring the bag? No - oh well, forget it. I'm sure we'll work something out."

Fragger. He just didn't want to act the spectator to whatever Megatron did next.

A private ping popped up on Starscream's HUD.  _I'll be back to clean up the mess in 20. Do try to stay alive - and don't talk back, if you value your spark._

Starscream sneered. He could scratch the medic's precious faceplates later. For now, he mustered his strength and gave Lord Megatron his smarmiest smile.

"Come to admire your handiwork, Master?"

"This was not my intention."

_And yet here I am. In the medbay again. By your hand._

Megatron paused a pace away. His warm ex-vents rippled over Starscream's left wing - what was left of it. "You could've let me fall."

Starscream shut his optics. "I could."

"Why didn't you?"

Knock Out had put him on pain-blockers. While Starscream recognized the wooziness in his helm, the slow sludge into which his processing functions had dissolved, he wasn't quick enough to stop his glossa shaping the next words: "Because your spark has this infuriating aversion to death."

Megatron snorted. "As does yours."

Once upon a time, long ago in their mutual history, that bass growl never failed to make Starscream's fans a-whirr. But time cooled all things, whether you were talking about passions or thermodynamic heat-death. Now, when air rushed over his busted ailerons (damaged sensors zapping haywire, telling him he flew through a typhoon) Starscream flinched.

Instinct, fear. An expectation of pain.

Megatron's hand froze, a metre from cupping his face. In Cybertronian terms, that metre was barely an inch.

Starscream didn't let his helm fall into his grip. He watched Megatron, and Megatron watched him. Eventually, the silence grew too heavy to bear.

Starscream turned his face. Away from the hand, away from Megatron. A clearer rejection would be hard to come by, when bolted to a medical berth.

"Master," he croaked. His glossa was dry; he sucked lubricant from his cheek mesh to dampen it. "Will our lessons resume in the morning?"

Megatron stepped back. His huge hand dropped, dangling limp by his side. "Our lessons resume once you are able. Knock Out assures me it will not be for two solar-cycles yet."

Scrap. Starscream floundered, fighting to sit. Megatron, at last, made contact, if only to press him back down on the pallet. His hand remained, claws splayed above the Decepticon insignia, above Starscream's spark.

Starscream hated it, if only because Megatron would be able to tell just how fast that spark was pulsing.

"Rest," Megatron insisted. "You are of no use to me if you damage yourself further."

Starscream wriggled, but it was more out of defiance than of hope. "But the week - our deal!"

Realization crossed Megatron's faceplates. "The deadline shall also be extended. This is a vital task, and I approach it with the utmost sincerity."

Starscream bit down on his laugh. Could've fooled him. Mechs who were  _sincere_ about flight-training didn't take a running leap off the nearest cliff.

Megatron leaned closer. Each ex-vent heated the air around him to the faintest of blurs. "Why do you think I did not request for Soundwave to be my mentor?"

That was a point. Starscream hadn't given it much thought (because  _of course_ he was the superior flyer, and therefore the obvious choice). But now, the question pressed on his mind. Why  _would_ he be selected over the spy? Megatron made his preference between them as clear as the distinction between night and day on this fast-spinning, alien earth.

"Because he's poor company?" he guessed.

The tips of Megatron's claws rested on Starscream's chest plates, over the insignia that declared him his. "No. Because Soundwave has his skillset, but in flight, you are  _the best._ You excel in the air, unmatched, unparalleled." For a moment, as the Warlord gazed down at him, Starscream almost thought he was going to smile. "Why do you think I chose my new alt-mode?"

Starscream's spark hammered, so hard and fierce that he swore he heard the rebound in his audials. Was Megatron really saying...?

"Oh," he managed. His faceplates heated, curse it all. "I - I see."

Megatron towered over him a moment longer - sadist - pressing the Seeker into the birth, savouring the tense quiver of his form, the hike of his snapped wings. Then, at last, he stepped away.

His claws lingered longest. They left miniature divots, mimicking those scarred into Starscream's back from where Megatron had clutched his nosecone as they scraped and slid across the desert floor.

"Two days," he reminded him. "Be ready."

He left Starscream shivering on the berth, fuel-lines fizzling, faceplates flushed and all the more furious because of it.

 

 


	2. Lesson 2: First Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while! Sorry for the long wait. I've been very busy. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

Knock Out presented his all-clear, along with a very knowing smirk. Starscream took the liberty to carve it off with his sharpest talon.

Or at least, he threatened. He didn't want to wind up on the medic's bad side, not until his Master tired of this fiasco and found himself a more suitable alt-mode.

Something slow and stupid, Starscream decided. Like a human dump-truck.

"Well," he said, stalking out of the elevator the next morning, flicking his wings at the vehicons in dismissal. "I do hope that we won't be repeating our last lesson any time soon."

The vehicons filed away, tramping in-step, each blow of their pedes making the deck quake in time. Ahead stood Megatron, Lord and Master, tyrant king of all he surveyed, etcetera, etcetera, so on and so forth.

He smirked at Starscream over one high, spiked pauldron. "Do not fear, my second. I am a fast learner."

"I see." Starscream clinked forwards. The repairs to his frame may be complete, but they had also been extensive, of a severity Knock Out hadn't had to deal with since Megatron's last tantrum. It would take a time for him to return to full functionality; his hip joints in particular zinged whenever he lay his feet flat. As flat as they got, considering his heel-extensions. "Then perhaps, Lord Megatron, you might then tell me what yesterday's... _ahem,_ adventure, taught you?"

Megatron frowned. "You question my processing capabilities?"

"A quiz," Starscream was quick to correct. He assumed a servile bow. "Teacher, remember?"

Megatron surveyed him for a long minute, measured by the suck and wheeze of Starscream's forcibly-calmed intakes. He could feel the weight of that glare on the back of his helm, and didn't dare lift it until Megatron next spoke.

"Very well. But do not forget, Starscream, which of us is in charge."

Starscream let out a demure, albeit frustrated, chuckle. "Of course."

"You do not sound best pleased."

"It is... ah, merely that teaching a mech who outranks you can be..." Starscream searched for the right word. " _Stifling_."

Megatron shifted, armour resettling around his gargantuan form. "Well, Starscream. Get used to being stifled."

On any other day, Starscream would back down. Snivel, nod several times, possibly grovel a little to sweeten the deal. But scrap - if Megatron was intent on pursuing this path, Starscream had to assist him. That would become harder, if the Warlord remained recalcitrant.

"Will you at least _not_ take any more leaps until I deem you ready?"

Megatron considered it. "Perhaps."

It was the best Starscream could hope for. "Then let the lesson begin."

 

* * *

 

 

First things were first - Starscream had Megatron flip into and out of his transformation sequence. Fifteen times.

"I fail to see the purpose of this," said Megatron on the fourteenth. Having had Starscream insist that he _not_ ignite his thruster, he had been landing on his transformed form's undercarriage with a bone-rattling crash.

The troops must be wondering what in Cybertron's name they were doing up here. Starscream didn't want to think about the rumors that might already be flurrying around below-decks.

_Megatron and Starscream clear the flight-deck, followed by loud clanging; it's either a fight or a -_

He did his best to put that out of his head. "Again."

"Starscream, why am I doing this?" Megatron scowled down at him. "Other than for your own amusement."

"I thought you said that you would listen!"

"Stop pouting."

"I'm not -"

"I said that I would _consider_ not leaping off the edge of the ship without your explicit say-so. But to be ordered to do manoeuvres in which I see no purpose, other than humiliation..."

"It's about speed," said Starscream, before Megatron progressed too far down the wrong track. _Yes,_ this was rather fun (although it in no way compensated for his damage of two days hence). However, he had an ulterior motive, and for once, it was in Megatron's interests. "You're hitting the ground before you finish the sequence."

"Well done, Starscream. Gravity functions as expected on this world."

"Indeed. But when you selected this new alt-mode, _O Mighty Megatron,_ you made it your mission to defy gravity. I simply cannot permit you to progress until you aren't..." He grimaced around the word. "... _Belly-flopping_  every time you pull a transformation! It would be an embarrassment to my entire race!"

Megatron tilted his helm. "Is that how you see me? An embarrassment to your race?"

And there he went, sticking his high-heeled pede in his mouth again. Starscream fought to keep the tremble from his wings. "I - I meant not to an offend..."

"Like that ever stops you." But Megatron didn't smack him down, grind one of those vast, two-toed feet on his face. He crouched, eyes set grimly on the horizon, steam wafting from his transformation seams in starveling strings. They wormed across his armor, still cracked open. Starscream let his optics wander over them - then realized what he was doing and scowled at his pedes.

"Very well, my second. Let's see if I can make you proud."

 _Clang._ He still smacked the deck, hard enough to knock Starscream off balance. But by the time his Master flipped up into bipedal mode, rubbing grouchily at his chest-plating, Starscream wore a beam bright as the Vosian spires.

"Master! You did it!"

"Did you or did you not miss the part where I hit the floor?"

But that was to be expected, regardless of the Warlord's grumbling. Fear forgotten in the moment of elation, Starscream skittered forwards, wings fluttering high. "You were fully transformed _before_ you hit the floor! You're speeding up, Megatron - I."

His wings drooped again. For a moment, he had forgotten himself. Megatron was not _Megatron,_ not anymore.

Not to him.

"I mean, my master."

The Warlord surveyed him a moment. Starscream couldn't read what lurked behind those pit-red optics, and wasn't sure he wanted to. "I told you that I was a fast learner."

Starscream tapped his foreclaws together with a high chime of metal-on-metal. "I - uh, perhaps your teacher also deserves a little credit -"

"When do we move onto the next lesson?"

Ideally, Starscream would have Megatron perfect his transformation sequence to the point where he could flip and burn from a standing start without losing altitude. That was the lowest basic hurdle Seekers-in-training had to pass. But somehow, he doubted another joor of T-cog training would fit on the agenda, considering the size of Megatron's ego (massive) in comparison to his patience (significantly less so).

"I suppose we can work on your thruster ignition, now you have the basic sequence. Have you been drinking purified energon?"

"Wasteful," Megatron decreed. "A single cube could be diluted and fed to four Grounders."

Starscream did his very best not to groan aloud. "But we're _not_ feeding Grounders, are we?"

Megatron's eyes narrowed to livid red stripes. "Do not speak to me as if I were a sparkling."

Another flinch, another cringe. "Master, my apologies, I did not mean - it is only that - well. You must know that jets require a higher fuel concentration."

"Which is why I was a fool to construct the bulk of my army out of them." Megatron braced both broad, clawed hands on his hips. "I find myself pandering to the delicate tanks of yourself and your vehicon armada far more than pleases me."

Starscream's mind performed the equivalent of a record-scratch.

Wait, what? Megatron honestly thought he and his fellow fliers only drank pure energon because they were... _picky eaters?_

It would be hilarious, if it weren't so _infuriating._

"Lord Megatron," he tried to reason, although he had to speak through gritted teeth. "You remember how you failed to ignite your thruster when we last attempted this?"

"I find it hard to forget." Megatron sneered down at him from on high. "And I did not _fail._ I merely was not _taught._ "

Oh yes, because that had all been _his_ fault. Starscream wondered if he could pretend a passing cloud had caught his attention and justify an eye-roll.

"Simply put, master, dilute energon doesn't burn hot enough to keep bodies of _my_ weight-class in the air. You..." He gestured to Megatron's - well. His everything. Those stupid, bulky curves of armor, which gave the Decepticon leader his robust silhouette. "You require a lot more _thrust._ "

"Indeed," said Megatron, level-faced. "I recall your thrust being quite inadequate." Then, while Starscream recalled how to in-vent without choking - "I imbibed a cube of pure energon before our lesson. That shall suffice."

 _No,_ Starscream wanted to insist. _We_ hope _it will suffice._

Ideally, Megatron would follow his own diet - a limited yet regular intake of high-grade. Not glugging a whole damn cube at once. The old fool was lucky he hadn't overcharged. Drunk flying _had_ been attempted by several young, foolish Seekers, although few of these survived to become old, foolish ones; Skywarp being the obvious exception.

But Skywarp and Thundercracker had left on a long-term scouting mission. Eons later, they had yet to return. They'd either deserted or off-lined, but either way they'd left him, and Starscream didn't plan on forgiving them any time soon.

"Very well," he said. _If you are so determined to crash again._ "It may be best if we start this lesson at the far end of the _Nemesis_ flight deck."

He trotted over, bracing himself for each of his Master's ground-shaking steps as the giant mech followed.

"Here." They stood between the flared spines that pronged from the _Nemesis's_ aft, breeze twisting pleasantly over Starscream's wings. They raised and dropped, chasing the currents. "We ought to turn the _Nemesis_ 38 degrees to the sunrise, Master. There is a crosswind that may interfere with your training."

"I cannot only learn to fly in favorable weather conditions, Starscream."

"Yes, but -" _You're a beginner. A beginner with none of a natural flight-born spark's advantages._

No. There was little point in arguing. Lord Megatron would discover his error for himself. Starscream ex-vented.

"Very well," he conceded. "Watch me." And with that, he jumped, tucked, rolled, and neatly slid into his transformation. A light, easy push was all that was needed to sail to the _Nemesis's_ far side, whereupon he flipped again and landed, a study in grace. "You see?"

Megatron harrumphed.

"The trick is to be gentle," Starscream continued, having to raise his voice to be heard across the distance between them. "Most new-flyers panic and overcompensate. You feel yourself start to fall, and so you _force_ the turbine into compliance. You must learn to see it not as an extraneous part, built into you by your transformation scanner, but as another limb. You must wield it with the same confidence as the sword in your arm –“

"Yes, yes." Megatron braced himself. He glowered at Starscream as if he was a target at a shooting range. "I can assure you that panic is the last thing on my mind. And I have never overcompensated for anything in my life."

"Yes," said Starscream, before he could stop himself. "That fusion cannon is one hundred percent proportionate."

Silence. Then, just as Starscream's wings were sinking to their lowest, trembles scurrying up his legs, Megatron shook his helm. "As I require your continued function if I am to attain my goals, I am going to pretend that I didn't hear that."

Starscream gulped. "Much obliged, Master."

"Hm." Megatron sized up the gap between them, focused once more. Then he _jumped._

However dubious Starscream might be about this venture as a whole, he couldn't deny that Megatron _had,_ however reluctantly, been listening to him. He aimed for a higher altitude in his leap, giving him more time to complete the transformation sequence. It took him a further second to kick his thruster to life - no doubt with several internal, self-directed threats. But the next moment… _V_ _woom._

A heavy-class Cybertronian fighter jet was a sight to behold. Not as agile or speedy as the lighter Seeker models, but _oh,_ that _power._ It was breath-taking. It was hypnotic.

It was fragging _terrifying_ , when it shot towards you.

The crosswind struck Megatron; he boosted his jets even more, his only instinct being to keep himself airborne.

Starscream lived up to his name. "Ah! Slow, I said! You're going to - over - edge!"

His panic must've percolated. Not yet having mastered _slowing_ his thruster, Megatron instead flipped out-of-sequence and used the floor as a friction brake.

Unfortunately, Starscream got in his way.

"Frag!"

His Master smashed into him like a falling mountain.

They tumbled together, rolling in a mad whirlwind of parts. There was a terrifying moment when Starscream thought Megatron's entire bodyweight was going to crash down on his legs, snapping them across the joint. But then - an accident, surely! - a giant hand fastened around his waist. It scooped him tight against Megatron's chassis. The Warlord grunted, flipped, and landed heavily once more, on his back this time. They screeched to an ungainly halt.

Starscream flopped, gasping. He fought to get his pounding spark under control. Megatron's servo weighed heavy on his turbine, sandwiching him to Megatron's chest.

Perhaps the leg snapping would've been preferable.

"Starscream..."

Starscream twitched. His wings made abortive flaps, one trapped under Megatron's forearm. "I - yes, my Lord?"

"Did you plan on moving anytime soon?"

Starscream was too shocked at this entire situation to keep his glossa in check. "Well - I - it's a little difficult, when you're _hugging_ me!"

The arm retreated as quickly as if Starscream had contracted a strain of Cybonic plague. Megatron sat, rolling Starscream off him. Starscream landed on his aft, hard enough to jolt a spike of pain up his spinal struts.

"Ow!"

Megatron looked unrepentant. But when he stood, he offered Starscream his hand.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

By the time their allotted five joors wound to a close, Megatron could perform the short flight with confidence. Starscream watched him, brimming with pride. He wasn't ashamed to take credit for the big lug's victories, minor though they were. His Master would be lost without him.

Megatron transformed. He landed with a boom that rattled Starscream to his tailerons. This time, he managed to do it in front, rather than on top of him.

"Earlier," he rumbled, with no preamble. "You asked me what I had learned. I did not provide an adequate answer."

Could this be? Was Megatron actually  _listening_ to him?

Another unexpected development. Megatron had been full of them, as of late. Starscream didn’t trust this - no more than he had trusted Megatron's first request to meet him on the flight-deck, or anything that happened thereafter. Still, he tried for a smile. "And what did our, ah, lesson, reveal?”

“You stopped me spinning. You leveled us out.”

That much, Starscream hoped, had been obvious. “Indeed. And then?”

“You attempted to correct our descent to a diagonal gradient.”

 _It would’ve gone far smoother were it not for your overgrown aft._ “If you’re falling, you don’t want to fall straight down.”

“That much seems self-evident. But there was a factor of… disorientation. How do you tell you are holding a steady course?”

“You must equalize the horizon and the sky. A monitor should flash up on your HUD while in alt-mode.”

Megatron looked, for the first time since they set out on this venture, a little daunted. “There were a lot of monitors on my HUD.”

“Yes. Because flying is an art.” _As I’ve told you, many times._

Starscream suspected getting Megatron to any state of competence by the end of the pentacycle would be too great a miracle to ask of Primus. The best he could hope for was that the experience might give his Master a little more respect for those Cybertronians blessed with wings.

“Once you have progressed to longer flights, My Lord, I’ll start teaching you what your monitors mean.” If they ever reached that level, of course. “First, there are some – ahem. Points that I might give guidance on. Not – not criticism, of course!” He didn’t want to wind up back in the medbay. “Just some, uh, tips for improvement…”

“Out with it, already.”

Starscream’s wings flapped low. “Yes, well. It’s very, uh, _impressive_ when you launch yourself out of alt-mode in such a violent fashion, My Lord, but it bodes ill for your knee struts in the long run.”

Megatron’s brows swooped low over his eyes. “I am not so ancient that you need to worry about my joints rusting, Starscream.”

“What, I -! That wasn’t what I said! The impact of transforming at speed simply adds another layer of wear that is often unnecessary, and –“

Megatron appeared to be concentrating. “Flaps,” he announced.

Starscream blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I need to learn to slow down. When you – we – crashed. Your plating, it…” Megatron made a peeling motion, pressing the heels of his hands together and pulling the digits apart. His mouth pulled down in a sharp, displeased frown. “I have never seen such a thing.”

Ah, that.

“Y-yes. To increase drag.” Starscream fought the heat back from his faceplates. He drew himself up, imagining he was lecturing a group of bright-eyed young Seeker-hopefuls at the Vosian Academy again. It was certainly a more appealing image than the scowling gladiator before him. “If you move too slowly whilst airborne, you lose lift and risk stalling. But should you wish to reduce velocity suddenly and with extreme intent, you can use your plating as extra flaps. For most scenarios, reducing power to your thrusters will suffice – it is best to leave the flap option for emergencies.”

“Indeed,” said Megatron. “It is quite obscene.”

Well, a Grounder would think so, wouldn’t they? Starscream wasn’t going to apologise for showing his Lord a flash of his protoform.

“In most situations, the vulnerabilities of opening one’s protective shell outweigh the bonuses,” he said. “I only resort to such options when it might make the difference between my spark’s extinguishing and its continued glow. Or yours, Master.”

Best not let the old slagger forget who’d saved whose hide.

Megatron snorted. “I hope you do not expect me to practice your lewd techniques.”

A shame. Starscream had failed many times to scratch, blast, or otherwise penetrate Megatron’s weighty armour. A shot at his protoform would be too great an opportunity to pass up on.

“Of course not, Master. Tomorrow, we will focus on vertical braking. If, um, that pleases you?”

Megatron gave a grunt of acknowledgment and turned towards the lift. Starscream ex-vented. Today had seen marginal improvement – he wasn’t going to spend another cycle strapped to a medical gurney with only that insufferable medic for company.

 

* * *

 

 

That same insufferable medic instead chose to corner him in the canteen. He dropped into the seat beside Starscream, his blue pet muscle slouching in the background. “I see you’ve got our Lord hooked on the high-grade! I must admit, Starscream, I thought getting him overcharged was too _gauche_ for one of your plots.”

“What are you talking – oh.”

Megatron sat alone, as usual. No one dared approach his table, and he certainly invited no other mech to sit. A cube of purified energon sat before him, glowing luminous blue, the color of an Autobot’s eyes. Megatron was certainly glaring at it with enough vehemence.

It was approximately quarter the size of the regular Grounder cubes, on account of being that much more refined. It seemed he’d taken Starscream’s advice to heart.

Knock Out propped his elbow joints on the table. “You’re staring, Commander~”

“Why you – what? No, I’m not!”

Knock Out rested his pointy little chin on his hands, treating Starscream to an utterly infuriating smirk. Starscream flustered, sipping his own cube to compose himself. It did little good; his winglets jittered out from his back along two parallel lines, and he was horribly aware of how his sharp denial had carried over the general hubbub of the vehicons fetching their meals.

Megatron might’ve heard. Megatron might be _looking._

“I’m not,” he insisted. “I’m not.”

Knock Out’s waggling eyebrows insinuated a lack of belief. But when Starscream brandished a claw at his faceplates, he amended his attitude and traipsed off with Breakdown in tow, shooting Starscream one last cocky salute.

Brat.

Starscream hunkered over his energon and tried not to think about tomorrow.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to every commenter and kudos-leaver!


	3. Lesson 3: Vertical Brake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY! Nookie. Or, coitus interruptus, but still...

Unfortunately, putting the next day out of his head didn’t make it approach any slower.

“The vertical brake,” Starscream explained, stood before Megatron on the flight deck. The vehicons were, by now, accustomed to being banished for the duration of their commanding officers’ sessions.

Starscream wouldn’t have minded – it was good, that they knew their place. But he’d sworn he’d seen a few of them  _elbowing_ each other, and turning their featureless faces between his leader and his own person in a manner that was hardly professional. Almost as if they were gossiping over their private comms...

His imagination, he was sure.

He rose his voice a little higher, carrying clearly through the crisp morning. This high in the atmosphere, the air felt brisk as winter, although the baking desert stretched for miles and miles below.

“The concept is simple. Say you are travelling at high velocity and need to either alter your course or come to a halt. Your thruster will power you forwards. To counter this, the simplest method is to adjust your angle so your thruster drives you  _backwards_ instead, thus finding an equilibrium between your forwards momentum and your –“

“Enough.” Megatron lumbered for the far end of the deck and stood there, arms crossed. “Demonstrate.”

Starscream was no flying monkey, performing for his Master’s amusement. But at the same time – well. He never shied away from showing the old mech what he could do.

“Very well. Stay right where you are. I would advise against ducking out the way, unless you want me to accidentally melt your faceplates.”

Megatron’s smirk had a smarmy edge. “Trust me, Starscream. I won’t flinch.”

Ugh. It would be tempting to plow right into him – if only Starscream didn’t know his own, far lighter plating would crumple on impact. Most likely, Megatron would laugh. “Very well.”

He jumped, twisting into his transformation. The wind scythed beneath his wings. Two neat trails streaked from his ailerons, as if they sliced the air itself. Starscream roared towards his leader. Then, at the last moment...

 _Whoosh._ Nosecone up; flip beneath. His jet engine shot a plume of flames over Megatron’s head. Starscream fell backwards, out of his alt-mode. He turned a neat flip neatly and landed, almost-silent, with a delicate clink.

“See?” he asked. He was a little breathless – not from the exercise; he would hardly consider himself worthy of the title of  _Seeker Winglord_  if such stunts exhausted him. But it was a rare day Megatron invited him to show off. “Much lighter – a virtuoso expression of one’s air-agility!”

“If you have finished preening.” Megatron tensed his legs for another of his great, galumphing transformation-leaps. “My turn.”

Luckily, Soundwave interrupted them before Megatron could do himself an injury – or worse, Starscream. The spy stepped from the elevator, padding towards them, his disturbing wing-arms all but dragging along the floor. Starscream shuddered. At least Megatron made no attempt to distort his natural Grounder form in order to fit flier-components. The results were rarely pretty – not that Soundwave had ever shown much appreciation for aesthetics. What sort of bot removed their own  _faceplate_?

“Lord Megatron,” replayed a clip of his own voice, sounding despicably servile. Soundwave did it to mock him, Starscream was sure.

The truly unfair part was that it could take breems of wheedling, scowling, and flapping his wings like a sulky sparkling before Megatron paid him attention. But of course,  _Soundwave_ got preferential treatment. Megatron dismissed all thoughts of vertical-brake training from his processor and clunked across to join his third lieutenant.

“Yes, Soundwave?”

Starscream could champ his dentae, clench his clawed fists, and imagine he had Soundwave’s neck cables gripped between them. Or he could sidle over and ensure he wasn’t left out of any potentially important intelligence briefs.

“You had better have good reason for interrupting our lesson,” he growled. “Lord Megatron has specifically ordered that we not be disturbed unless…”

A ping rippled across Soundwave’s visor. Ugh.

“…Unless you locate Autobot activity around an energon source,” Starscream finished.  _Fraggit_. “Master, if you would permit me to deal with this nuisance?”

That would be the sensible option. But Megatron was smirking in a way that Starscream knew meant trouble.

“Um. Master?”

“Perhaps it is time I gave my new alt-mode a field test.”

Starscream’s wings hiked up in aggravation. Of course.  _Of course._ The old buckethead could never take the slow road; he didn’t know the meaning of the word. “I – I fear that you are not yet ready –“

“Not yet ready? To take on the Autobots?” Megatron treated him to the usual cold sneer, that illicit promise of pain. “Mind to whom you speak, Starscream. And do not  _ever_ suggest that you are more suited to combat than myself.”

“Not at combat,” Starscream tried to argue. Not even  _his_ pride could justify such a boast. “At  _flying._ Which we will need to do, to reach the mine.”

Megatron puffed out his chest. “I have flown.”

“Yes! From one end of the  _Nemesis_ to the other.” Starscream turned on Soundwave. “Tell him! You know I’m right. Considering our Lord’s progress, do you think it wise to dispatch him into a combat zone?”

They’d ordered the eradicons to leave the deck, not for Soundwave to cease his surveillance. Doubtless, he’d been observing from afar. This theory was proven when Soundwave turned to Megatron, and shook his helm.

Wait. What? Handbrake screech. Soundwave  _agreed_ with him?

Starscream was elated for all of a minute. Then Megatron had to ruin it. “Very well.”

Starscream’s mouth fell open. “So when  _I_ tell you it’s a bad idea, you ignore me, but when Soundwave says it, you listen?”

Megatron's eyes flashed, red as the pits. “Soundwave says little, except when necessary. Perhaps you ought to follow his example.”

Fragger. As if Starscream would  _want_ to be like that creepy cold fish.

Starscream glowered at Soundwave, but could find nothing in his empty faceplate to focus on but his own expression. Sneering at his reflection rather defeated the object, so he desisted.

Megatron clanked away from them, hands clasped behind his back. “I shall accompany you within a shuttle, rather than by wing. Fly ahead, Starscream. Put that precious speed of yours to use; scout the area. I do not expect you to disappoint me.”

Starscream knew his part. With a last quick scowl in Soundwave’s direction, he dropped into an elegant bow. “When have I ever?”

He transformed and flew off before Megatron could enquire whether he wanted the list arranged alphabetically, or by date.

 

* * *

 

 

The energon mine lay within a herd of rocky knolls: steep, triangular protrusions that sprung up from the planet’s crust like an outbreak of rust-acne. They were about the same color, red scoria striped with bands of blue-black clay. No chance of Starscream blending in to the backdrop.

He could already hear the sounds of the conflict: the slashes and grunts as the Autobots engaged the vehicon workforce. No blaster fire. Not in such close proximity to the deposit. Clearly, the Autobots were not exercising  _tabula rasa_  tactics. They wanted this hoard for themselves. This was a basic raid of sustenance – which meant they must be running low on supplies.

Starscream flicked out of vehicular mode on the edge of the quarry, rubbing his talons to assure himself of their sharpness. He hoped the Bots were malnourished. Slow. That would work to his advantage.

Megatron had requested him to scout only, but from the sounds of it, the Vehicons fared poorly. Starscream was hardly going to sit back and kick up his feet while the Autobots swanned off with a motherload! Why, Megatron was far more likely to pummel him to scrap for such an offence, than for a trifling matter of disobeying his orders.

With that in mind, Starscream made to fling himself over the edge – then hastily scrambled back again, before his heels could skid on the loose shale.

Curses. They’d brought the Prime.

On second thoughts, perhaps it would be prudent to wait for Lord Megatron after all.

 

* * *

 

 

Optimus was in fine form. Sunlight played across his armour, highlighting the curves and angles of his build. His plating was red, white and blue; the same bright hues Starscream had worn in the early days, before he lost his trine.

Starscream couldn’t help but resent him, whenever he laid optics on that cursed color-scheme.

He hunkered low, wings dipping to avoid catching the sun and giving away his position. No sense taking to the air. He’d only be a target. But perhaps he could maintain his advantage of surprise…

Optimus spun, skewering three Eradicons on his arm-blade. Their bodies were lifted entirely off the floor, pedes twitching, before their circuits ran cold and they dangled limp, broken wires leaking energon to puddle at the Prime’s feet.

Around him darted that two-wheeler and her mouthy partner. Cliffjumper. He’d made a name for himself, bringing down Seekers, back in the early days after the war left Cybertron and Starscream’s people renounced their neutrality, their city having gone up in smoke. He used to shoot up with a high-octane jetpack, slap a charge on their plates and blow them out of the air. He’d crow about it after, as gory chunks of wiring rained down.

Starscream detested all Autobots. But if he had to pick… Well. He’d kill that one first.

He took aim. His arm-blaster exuded a bright red glow, but he hoped the distractions of the battle – and their own rumbling tanks – would keep the Autobots occupied. He lined up his shot, breathing steadily. Readied himself. And –

Megatron’s ship roared in to land, thrusters booming, making the ground judder under Starscream’s chest. His shot skewed wide, bursting the rock to the left of Cliffjumper’s pedes.

The Autobot leapt away. He immediately swung around, scanning for the sniper, and –

Curses. Starscream had been too busy glaring at Megatron to duck out the way. He was made.

Still, the old rustbucket only had himself to blame. Starscream could’ve brought him the cadaver of an Autobot on this day – albeit one missing a head.

Hmph. Some other time.

“Megatron,” came Prime’s growl from below. Pointing out the obvious must be an Autobot speciality, because Cliffjumper pointed to Starscream as well.

“He brought his pet. Little coward’s sniping us from up top. What’s wrong, Screamy? Too scared to come play with the big boys?”

The two-wheeler – Arcee – had trained her blasters on him. But at Cliffjumper’s taunting, she rolled her optics and swung them towards the true threat.

Megatron. He stepped from the airlock, wearing menace like squishie-cologne. Starscream had witnessed him intimidate his foes too many times for it to have any effect; he blamed the tight, hot clench inside him on fury.

His Master had ruined his shot,  _and_ his entrance. Typical selfish Groundpounder.

Megatron didn’t spare him a glance. As usual, as soon as it came to conflict, he only had optics for that slag-head of a Prime.

“Is this what you’ve been reduced to, Optimus? Snaffling from my stockpiles, stealing the dregs? Why, I thought you above such behaviour.”

“Unlike you, Megatron, I see no point in prioritizing pride over survival. Ratchet! The Ground Bridge! Cliffjumper, Arcee – get that energon to safety!”

Their prize lay in wait: several hundred cubes' worth, stacked on two hover-trolleys that the Eradicons had been in the process of ferrying to the drop point.

Curses. If they let them get away with a prize of that scale, it wouldn’t put a dent in their own reserves – they could always mine more, and as foul and gritty as this little backwater planet may be, it was certainly rich in stockpiles. But it would bolster the Autobots’ strength, and that Starscream couldn’t abide.

He saw Megatron’s lips contort back from his jagged dentae. Heard his roar of fury. The warlord leapt from the quarry’s edge, not bothering to transform. He merely shoved his sword arm into the wall, carving a gash in the rock. He braced himself and exploded forth, pushing off the splintering stones.

And barrelled straight into Optimus. Ignoring the two other Autobots currently stealing all his energon.

Of course.

Starscream ex-vented. “If you want something done right… Best do it yourself.”

And with that, he turned his back to the ledge and let himself fall.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

A steep-sided canyon wasn’t the optimum territory for a flier, but Starscream didn’t let it put him off. He wheeled nosecone-to-the floor and assumed vehicular mode, strafing the ground around the Autobots’ feet. A risky enterprise, but worth it – the fools recognized the danger, transforming, backpedalling and reforming at safe distance.

Starscream performed a steep vertical brake (ha! See that, Megatron?) slowing his velocity enough that he could drop nimbly between the Autobots and their goal, rather than flattening himself against the rock. He shot a quick glance at Megatron, to see if he was impressed, and –

Glaring? What cause did the Mighty Megatron have to _glare_ at his subordinate, after such an impressive display?

“Starscream! What do you think you’re doing? Firing live rounds around my energon?"

Starscream’s wings fell from their proud heights. He muttered his retort to his pedes. “I _can_ aim, my Lord…”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“He said he can aim!” called Cliffjumper, thereby cementing his position at the top of Starscream’s to-scrap list. His faceplate heated. Megatron said nothing – just gave him one of those patented, coldly-furious looks.

_I’ll deal with you later._

Starscream’s wings sunk further. Great. If he got out of this raid uninjured, but wound up in the medbay regardless, Knock Out would never let him hear the end of it.

“Aw.” Cliffjumper stuck out his lower lip plates. “Screamer gonna get a spanking?”

Oh, that was _it._ As Megatron and Optimus clashed again, Starscream turned back to the Autobot vermin and let the full force of his fury shine through his eyes.

“I am going to kill you,” he promised, lowly. “If not today, then another day soon after. Rest assured, you loud-mouthed cretin. I will not rest until I have plunged my talons into your spark.”

“Big words, Screamer.” Cliffjumper feigned a yawn. “Like to see you live up to them.”

Starscream flexed his claws, preparing to spring forwards. “Then why don’t you let me _show –“_

And that was when Arcee, who’d been skulking around to his blind spot, dove at him from the side.

Curses! They’d tricked him!

Blades sprouted from the two-wheeler’s forearms. She slashed Starscream’s left leg, forcing him to one knee. Just a mesh wound – thankfully. Starscream had little in the way of armour; had she nicked one of the exposed central fuel lines in his abdomen, this fight would’ve been over quickly, and his life shortly thereafter.

“How _dare_ you –“

Cliffjumper barged in from the right. His pede swept up, cracking Starscream on the temple.

Frag.

His vision flickered. Everything whited out, then tilted back in at an alarming angle as his body was flung to one side.

“Shouldn’t be so touchy, Scream!" the garrulous Groundpounder crowed. "Your carrier never tell you _sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me?_ ”

“No,” Starscream choked, “because that is a pathetic _human_ rhyme, and my Carrier was not a barbarian.”

“Killed ‘em like one though,” said Cliffjumper. “When we blew up Vos.”

Oh, Starscream knew what he was doing. He was trying to make him mad. Make him sloppy, imprecise. And Starscream also knew that it was _working._

Soundwave would never let himself be so addled. Soundwave would never be caught off-guard.

But Starscream was not Soundwave, no matter how much his Master might wish it.

He flung himself at Cliffjumper. His furious shriek echoed off the stone walls of the great colosseum, which had been bored from the bedrock by Decepticon drills. Cliffjumper ducked back – not fast enough to avoid a new carving on his chest plate. “Woah there! He this noisy in the berth, Megatron?”

Press, press, press. Each of Starscream’s buttons, jammed with malicious glee. Because Cliffjumper saw him as the weak link, the easy target. And by rising to the bait, Starscream proved him _right._

Arcee zoomed in again. She landed a new cut on his wing.

Scrap – Starscream had to stop forgetting about her. They made quite the tag-team: the noisy red Autobot hoarding all the attention, while the slim femme slipped up close and slit your throat from behind.

But now Starscream had seen the pattern, he could _use it._

Megatron kept glancing at him. Starscream snarled. _Focus on your own battle, fool. Whatever you might think of me, I can hold my own._

He’d gone quiet after Cliffjumper’s last tease. The bot must think he’d touched a livewire, because he shot Arcee a ballsy wink and went in for the kill. “Can’t see why else the old bucket-head keeps you around. Scheming little coward like you. What use are you, except a tight valve and a pair of pretty wings?”

Starscream knew what he wanted. He wanted him to lunge, so that Cliffjumper could evade while Arcee attacked from the rear. He obliged them. His swipe scraped a whirling blaze of sparks from Cliffjumper’s shoulder-guard – cosmetic, mostly, but no less painful for it.

A rush of air against his wings, a sudden sense of _danger._ Arcee was making her move –

Starscream twisted and caught her by the throat.

“ _That’s_ why he keeps me around,” he snarled at Cliffjumper. He transformed his arm, pointing the blaster at the horned imbecile who dared to underestimate him. Arcee, he raised into the air, applying warning pressure to the vital lines that fed energon to her processor. “Submit?”

Cliffjumper squared his jaw, but his optics betrayed him. They kept glancing to his partner. “You shoot me, I dodge. You hit the energon, it blows.”

“I fly away,” Starscream purred. “You bots can perish together. Would you like me to slit the two-wheeler’s lines before or after this mine goes up in smoke?”

“Don’t you dare blow up my mine!” yelled Megatron, which rather put a crimp in Starscream’s bluff. His wings flattened against his back.

“Master, I had it under contr –“ A flash from behind Megatron. Frag! His distraction had gotten the better of him. Starscream’s optics popped wide. “Master! Behind you!”

His grip slackened in shock. Arcee took the opportunity, as much as it presented itself, sinking her blade half a metre into Starscream’s arm.

He _shrieked._

Megatron kicked to the rear, catching Optimus in the abdominal plating and barging him backwards before he could bring his sword up in a swift, spark-puncturing thrust.

Starscream didn’t notice. Arcee whirled around him, a tornado of sneers and sharp edges. She dropped onto his back, between his flapping wings, her sword-extensions prickling at his throat.

“Gotcha.”

“You – you fragger! You cheat!”

“Big words,” drawled the two-wheeler. “From a Con.”

Blades met: a ringing report of steel on steel. Warlord and Prime glared into each other’s eyes. It was all very macho. Starscream would’ve enjoyed the show, were it not for his Autobot surfer.

Cliffjumper grinned, then cupped his hand to his mouth. “Oi, Megatron! We got your flyboy-toy. You want him back in one piece, you best back down!”

Starscream considered his options. He could fall back, stun Arcee so she released her grip. That might work. Or she might open his lines. He could shoot Cliffjumper – but not before his wicked little partner cut him. Still, tempting.

Eventually, he settled on a snort. “You are foolish if you think Lord Megatron would ever call a retreat for –“

“Optimus.” Their blades remained locked, pressed together with equal but opposing force. “Take half.”

Starscream’s jaw dropped. From the corner of his eye, he saw the two-wheeler react similarly. Unfortunately, he was too busy processing his own shock to do anything about it. “M-Master?”

“Guess he really _does_ like them wings.” Cliffjumper sprinted towards the trolleys. “We’ll be taking both though, if you don’t mind...“

Megatron leveled his fusion cannon. His other arm, from which the blade sprouted, bore down on Optimus’s chassis, too heavy for him to force away. “Do not test me.”

 _He_ was the one who slagged-off Starscream for threatening to blow the mine – but now wasn’t the time to voice such shrill indictments. Cliffjumper swallowed; Starscream saw the bob in his intake. He raised his hands from the trolley handlebars.

“Optimus?”

Optimus never let his optics stray from Megatron. He had his battle mask up, but there was something inscribed in those warm blue eyes, something Starscream despised. It almost looked like… approval. “Take half, Cliffjumper. One trolley only. Arcee?”

The blade dipped from the danger zone. Pedes pushed against Starscream’s back. He grunted, staggering forwards – and Arcee leapt _backwards,_ turning a neat one-eighty flip and landing on her feet, some distance behind.

“Be seeing you, Con,” she told him. Her smirk was the frost to her partner’s fire. Then she rammed the other side of the handlebars to get the cart moving, the high-stacked pyramid of energon vanishing after Cliffjumper into the revolving green vortex of the groundbridge.

Optimus stepped back from Megatron, wary. “I was not expecting such a result.”

Megatron smirked. “I said that your Bots could return with the energon. I did not say they could return with you!”

He lashed out. Optimus deflected – and on it went. Starscream, rubbing his sore throat cabling, found himself a rock to perch on and spectate.

The giant mechs parried back, forth, back again. The whole while, Optimus was giving ground, reversing his way towards the portal. Megatron pressed forwards, aware it was not so much an advantage as a controlled retreat. Still, he was quite the sight to behold: armor glistening, vents wobbling the air with hot exhaust. He pummeled his arm blade against the Prime’s as if he meant to chip them apart.

Perhaps the war would’ve ended there and then, had Megatron not have done so many high-speed flip-transformations the day before.

Behind his knee plates, something _grated._ Megatron gasped.

The reprieve was all Optimus required. He ducked the next blow, folded into his truck form and accelerated away, leaving Megatron’s choking on his dust. The groundbridge fizzled out. Nothing left but dead Eradicons and another sour victory.

Any other time, Starscream would’ve laughed – at least, in the privacy of his helm. Not today. Today, he dared teeter closer to his Master, placing his thin feet carefully on the blast-bored rubble.

“Are you –“

“Fine,” grunted Megatron. Still, he issued a pained hiss as he flexed his leg. “Knock Out will attend to me upon my return.”

“Good, good. Um, excellent.” Starscream resisted the urge to sketch circles in the dust with his pointed toes. “Master?”

“Yes?”

“What you did…”

Megatron scowled down at his knee, as if offended by its betrayal. “I have further use for you, Starscream. You are teaching me to fly, remember?”

Starscream clicked his claws together, wings hanging. He was aware that he’d let his guard down. That he’d let his opportunity to snuff an Autobot spark slip between his talons. And usually, he wouldn’t give two whits about disappointing the Warlord who’d raised him up and battered him down. But somehow, today…

“I am… sorry.”

That got Megatron’s attention. He set his pede flat on the floor, grimacing ever-so-slightly, but forcing it to bear his weight. He peered at Starscream like he expected the apology to be pre-emptive, followed by an attack.

One wasn’t incoming. Starsceam’s wings drooped lower. “I – I let them bait me. I let my anger at their words get the better of me, and then I was distracted by your battle, and –“

Megatron took a step towards him. Then another. His wounded knee let out an ominous creak, but it held. Starscream, meanwhile, skittered back like a spooked turbofox, until the mine wall clonked his wings.

“I – uh… Master?”

No response. Megatron kept walking. Starscream gabbled faster.

“I – I should’ve cut her throat, Master! I had her, I had her in my grip! My – my greatest shame is to have failed you in battle, and –“

“Shut up Starscream,” said Megatron, and kissed him.

 

* * *

 

 

To call it a romantic gesture would be a touch overgenerous. In order to get Starscream at a level where the old mech didn’t have to bend in half and throw his back, Megatron had wrapped one ridiculously oversized hand around his waist and _picked him up._

Starscream assumed his Master had finally lost patience and was going to take a chomp out of his neck cabling, finishing Arcee’s job for her. He did the only thing he could think of and screamed in his face.

Which left a nice big open intake for Megatron to shove his glossa into.

He almost lost it, when Starscream’s mouth snapped shut in shock. He yanked his tongue out the way of his closing dentae, just in time.

Starsceam boggled up at his Master, seeing his huge, red eyes reflected in his armour. The curve warped his mirror image grotesquely, a Quintesson squeezed until its head popped.

“I – uh – you – ah – me – you – “

Megatron raised a leg, propping his pede on a handy nearby boulder. He dropped Starscream to straddle his thigh – who instinctively clutched it, wings flicking.

“I kissed you,” he told Starscream, whose processor was struggling to fulfil its ordained purpose. Then, gripping his shoulder guards to keep him still, he swooped in and did it again.

Starscream made a pathetic noise, somewhere between a squeak and a sob. He wrapped his arms around Megatron’s neck and kissed him back.

He didn’t think of the pain the hands spanning out across his wings had inflicted. Didn’t think about the degradation, the constant down-talking, the low, simmering resentment that had been building inside him for the last century, ever since they brought their farce of a relationship to an end. Calcifying, hardening, wedging inside him, a blockage no amount of high-grade could dissolve. Which no purging or overcharge, or rough, angry interfaces with whichever bot volunteered cleared away.

He let it all dissolve, lost to the tongue rubbing slick on his own. The potent tang of flier-energon on Megatron’s breath. The warming fuzz of his ex-vents, the caustic stink of his solvent, the – oh scrap – the whirr of his own cooling fans, spinning online.

“Master–“

The leg between his hitched up. Dragging against – skies.

Oh, it had been so long. The need pulsed through him, wet and greedy, and – frag, _frag,_ it would be so very easy to give in.

A low growl of his designation. The frame pressed to his was hot as his own. And large, so large. Huge enough to pick Starscream up and frag him as Megatron willed, on the berth, the consoles, the schematics table; any other vaguely horizontal surface they passed by. To grip his wrists two-to-one hand and _pin_ him while that thick, glorious spike pushed in.

More, more, _more._ Straining his valve, stretching him open, deeper, fuller, until Megatron was all he wept, all he tasted, all he knew…

Starscream heard a faint scraping sound. He looked down to discover his pelvis rocking against Megatron’s thigh. Fluid oozed from under his panel, lubricant the color of rose quartz. A glistening bead trickled along Megatron’s transformation seams.

“Ah – oh – “

Megatron scooped one of his slim legs, hooking it on his waist instead. He lifted Starscream the rest of the way, no discernible effort, as if he weighed no more than air. Which, he supposed, compared to Megatron, he didn’t. And – _oh, fraggit._

A hot spike panel throbbed under Starscream’s aft.

Megatron could frag him like this. Rough and dirty, scraping his wings raw against the rock. Down in the mud, surrounded by dead troops and spilt energon.

The thought of it sent a pulse through his valve, callipers wringing on nothing. Drops of lubricant ran down his inner thighs, hot as molten steel.

“Meg – Megatr –“

His Warlord leaned in, nuzzling bared fangs around Starscream’s much-abused neck. “Perhaps,” he said, in that low, snarling purr he always let creep into his voice before a fragging, “we should take this back to my cabin.”

And –

Starscream –

_Broke._

They finished this for a reason. War had this tricksy habit of inverting things. Righteous activists to tyrants. Pacifist librarians to warriors. Lovers to mortal enemies, locked in an eons-long grudge match.

And Megatron wanted to fix it with – what? A kiss? Some – admittedly mind-blowingly good – sex?

No. It wasn’t enough. Not for the beatings, the constant, spark-shivering fear, the long-haul mission that had lost Starscream his trine mates, and, a century before, the bomb that had fallen on his city.

Autobot firepower, it was claimed. Starscream had always had his suspicions, as that last battle, the loss of Vos, had given Megatron exactly what he wanted. It gave him, _him._

Starscream was not ready – did not know if he would _ever_ be ready – to willingly offer himself again.

“Stop,” he whispered.

Megatron didn’t hear him, or chose not to. He nibbled the lip of the collar on his chest armour, pinching his wings. Thick fingers pressed between his legs, stroking his valve panel, petting, probing, teasing it open as Megatron had done so many times before. But while his valve slicked and his spark burnt bright, Starscream felt nothing but revulsion.

“I said _stop_!”

Megatron stopped. His cooling fans roared; a constant, dull drone. He looked into Starscream's eyes, the two of them, for once, on the level.

Starscream didn't cower, although Megatron's expression transitioned swiftly from amor to anger. "Starscream..."

"I can't do this." Starscream gripped Megatron's wrist. The Warlord's hand was still between his legs. No longer touching him, but the warmth from his plating still percolated, still _violated;_ left him throbbing with need.

But not _want_. No desire. There hadn't been any of that, not for a very long time.

As Starscream's claws pressed in, that hand moved away. As did Megatron. He stood, Starscream all but crumpling off his leg. He hit the ground hard, bouncing on his aft. "Ow!"

Megatron said nothing. He turned, crossing the quarry's base. Then, as Starscream pushed himself to sit, scarcely daring believe that his spark still beat in his chest, he dug his claws into the wall, and started to climb.

He didn't look back. No scathing commentary, no last words.

Starscream watched his progress for what felt like a vorn, numb as if he'd been patrolling the Arctic.

A wet well of lubricant had gathered behind his valve panel. It was starting to go cold. A tepid trickle ran down the inside of his leg.

Starscream shuddered. Shook his helm.

He jumped, transformed, and roared up, past Megatron, honing on the _Nemesis's_ coordinates. If his Master had nothing to say, Starscream didn't see why he ought to break the silence.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all know how much I love comments~


	4. Lesson 4: Avoidance Tactics

Their next confrontation occurred not a single joor later. It was not ordained by either of their wills, but rather by the hand of Primus.

Why, if Starscream ever got his claws on that so-called _force of light and life,_ he'd extinguish it himself!

After a quick rinse in the wash-racks (followed by several breems spent pacing back and forth in his berth room, fuming, scheming, and strangling the air) Starscream made the drastic mistake of _going to visit the doctor_ about his new blemishes. And who should he run into, hobbling around the medical berth while Knock Out made adjustments to the gears in his knee joint, but his _dear_ Lord and Master, Megatron himself!

Starscream, for his part, tried to look haughty. _He_ had not been the one to initiate that kiss. To delve into their shared past, to dig up what ought to have remained buried.

Megatron, as usual, had no one to blame but himself.

His Master paused, midway through a step.

"Please place your pede _flat_ on the floor, my Liege," said Knock Out, knelt at one side, a scanner sweeping up and down the overstressed leg. "It is necessary to achieve accurate readings, and - oh." He lay optics on Starscream. "Commander. How nice of you to drop in. Wait - is that a dent in your _helm?_ "

Starscream ghosted his claws over the ding. "A parting gift from the red Autobot cur. My senses are not addled." Although, perhaps they had been? He'd let Megatron kiss him, hadn't he?

Megatron, for his part, lowered his foot with glacial slowness. Knock Out returned to the job at hand, waving at Starscream with an eye roll as if to say _I'll get to you later._

Starscream supposed the good doctor _had_ seen him in far worse condition. Mostly due to Megatron.

He folded his arms, leaning against the door. He could retire to his quarters, but why should _he_ scuttle from Megatron's path? Why should _he_ be sorry?

"Aha!" The scanner pinged. "I believe I have located the source of the problem, my Lord! A burst lubrication unit inside your gears. It will be a simple matter to replace, but I would suggest that you leave off any, um, large leaps for a decacycle after the operation is complete."

Starscream felt a smirk sneak over his faceplates. So, it _had_ been the high-speed jump-landings. He was right!

"I'll comm Breakdown," Knock Out continued. "Have him gather the necessary components from the  _Nemesis's_ subspace. Shouldn't take long."

Megatron had yet to give Starscream more than that cursory glance. "I will return soon, then."

He limped over to Starscream and towered above him. Starscream's wings swung down. His bravado, as always, evaporated when he came face to servo with Megatron's clenched fists. "My Liege, I-"

"You're blocking the door."

"Ah! My apologies." He skittered from his Master's path. By the time he raised his helm, Megatron was clumping down the corridor, gait interrupted by a slight hitch whenever his left pede met the floor.

Knock Out unfurled from his kneeling position, dusting himself off. "Well," he said, gesturing Starscream to the berth. " _That_ was awkward."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The helm-damage was, as he suspected, mostly cosmetic. Knock Out still insisted on shining blinding lights in his eyes, making him perform simple tasks even a sparkling would scoff at, and answer several stupid questions.

'Medical protocol', he insisted. 'Sadism', was Starscream's counter. Especially when Knock Out's questions vacated the realm of professional.

"What's your designation?"

A grit of Starscream's teeth. "You know full well."

Knock Out shot him a wounded look. "Please, Commander. I'm only doing my job. This would be easier on both of us, if you played along."

Usually, Starscream would refuse out of spite - but he didn't want to be stuck in the medbay all cycle. He scowled to one side. "Starscream is my designation, _doctor._ "

"Very well." Knock Out perched in his usual berthside chair. He tapped at the datapad on which he'd been taking notes, crossing his legs. "What is your position?"

"Second-in-command of the Decepticon Army. Air Commander. Winglord of Vos."

"Eesh." Knock Out grimaced. Starscream pounced on it like a turbofox on prey, leaning off the berth, wings snapping perpendicular to his spine as he tried to get a look at Knock Out's pad.

"What? What is it?"

Knock Out had the pad out of his sightline. "That last one's a little outdated. You may be having trouble recalibrating your memory banks..."

"Fool. Once one is named Winglord, one does not lose that title simply because..." His voice trailed away. This war had been too long and too brutal for old losses to hold much meaning. That was the theory, anyway. But Cliffjumper's taunt had still jostled loose bad memories.

"Because Vos burnt," Knock Out filled in. Starscream sniffed, wings flicking.

"Next question."

"Certainly." Knock Out's smile had a worryingly feline curl at the edges. "How would you describe your - ahem - relationship, with Lord Megatron?"

Starscream's jaw dropped. "I - that isn't - you're just hunting for gossip!"

Knock Out feigned offence. "I am checking that your emotional cortex functions! Please, the question."

"You don't give the orders here!"

" _Au contraire,_ dear Air Commander. So long as you aren't cleared for duty..." Knock Out's smirk increased in magnitude. "I'm afraid I have no choice."

Pits. Starscream was never going to get out of here, not unless he danced to Knock Out's tune. "Ugh. Well, Doctor. My relationship with Lord Megatron is like that of any would-be conqueror and his most dutiful servant."

"Wrong answer."

"Our relationship is… mutually respectful?"

Knock Out _laughed._

Starscream's claws carved long striations into the medical berth. "Doctor," he growled. "It would befit you to _watch your tone._ "

That pulled the flashy four-wheeler up short; his chortles gurgled to a stop. Starscream couldn't help but suspect that, had _Megatron_ been interrogated in his stead, Knock Out would never have dared snigger in the first place.

"My apologies, Commander. You know me; I get a little carried away. But please - helm wounds can have unpredictable consequences. _Knock-on_ effects, if you will. So, for the record... Let's move away from our Lord and Master. How would you describe your relationship with Soundwave?"

That one, at least, was easy. "Cold."

Knock Out considered his response, then shrugged. "Can't fault that. Alright - should you feel _any_ weakness, vertigo, loss-of-balance, difficulty transforming, hysteria..." He took another look at Starscream. "Hm, maybe not that last one. Still, come and see me for the rest. Wouldn't want your processor sprouting a glitch now, would we?"

Honestly, after the day he'd had, insanity might be welcome. Starscream gingerly slid off the medical berth. "I doubt that will be necessary. I feel fine."

"Famous last words." Knock Out turned to his little tray of instruments, soaking in medical-grade solvent, and began subjecting them to a vigorous polish. "Try not to accrue any more damage in your lesson with Lord Megatron tomorrow. Not that I don't relish your company, but it _would_ be nice to go a few cycles without seeing your face. Take Soundwave, for example! I believe he has only visited my medbay twice, and both times he was an exemplary patient -"

"Yes, yes. Soundwave is perfect. Don't I know it." Starscream shook his repaired helm, wincing at the faint twinge in his neck cabling, and stalked to the door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

That perfect mech was waiting for him when he returned to his quarters.

He stood so still he might as well have off-lined, blending into the shadows in the alcove around Starscream's door. It was a tactically advantageous position. Starscream didn't see him until he stepped forth to enter, and then there was no way to subtly divert his course and walk on by. He also couldn't enter his quarters without asking the mech to move.

Quite ingenious.

Starscream had never detested a mech so utterly. With Megatron's exception, of course.

"Soundwave," he greeted formally, clasping his servos behind his back. "What brings you to lurk in my doorway?"

Soundwave's visor activated, showing a close-up of Megatron's helm in profile. "Inform Starscream that his teaching services will no longer be required. Confer with him, receive any data regarding his next lesson plan, and report to the flight deck at first light. That will be all, Soundwave."

Starscream's mouth fell open. "I've - I've been fired?"

Soundwave tipped his head to one side. He summoned the log book to his visor. Starscream's name flashed below Megatron's, beside the title _Air Commander._ Soundwave had even kindly highlighted it in red, in case he'd forgotten how to read.

Starscream's wings bristled. "This will not stand," he told Soundwave. His voice was low and deadly. "Do not presume to usurp me without repercussions..."

The logbook flashed again, more adamantly this time. Starscream shook his head.

"It's not _about_ that!"

His title might not be at stake, but _something_ was. While Megatron's lessons may have resulted daily trips to the medbay, they still signified something. A change from the usual routine.

Not a rewind, back to the way things were (before Skywarp and Thundercracker left, before their ideologies warped into something unrecognisable. Before his first furious, foolish attempt to snuff Megatron's spark was answered with fists (along with every infraction after)).

But... _something._

Just a hint, a glimpse of the mech Megatron used to be. The mech who listened to Starscream, rather than beating him down.

And through that glimpse, Starscream saw the mech _he_ used to be too. Not cowering. Not cringing. Giving orders. Standing tall.

A mech worthy of serving at Lord Megatron's side, not beneath him.

The picture only existed in fragments. Starscream knew they could never piece together the shards. But still, he wasn't ready to let go of them. Wasn't ready to let them slip between his claws, not yet;  _not yet._

Of course, explaining this would take far too many words, and a freak like Soundwave wasn't likely to understand it anyway. Best Starscream take his dissatisfaction to the source.

Soundwave shifted to one side, gesturing to the door. Starscream shook his head. "No need. I have... other business, to attend to."

That clip replayed: Megatron issuing orders in a measured tone that Starscream rarely found himself the recipient of. "Confer with him, receive any data regarding his next lesson plan -"

"Later." Starscream plastered on his smarmiest smile. "Fear not, Soundwave. Await my return. Should our Lord still wish it -" _by the time I'm through with him_ "- I shall tell you the lesson plan _gladly_."

With a few extra embellishments, or outright fabrications about Proper Flying Practice that would make Megatron stall mid-air. Fragger.

Of course, Soundwave being a flight-shifted model himself, wouldn't be easy to fool. But Starscream could be cunning, when it suited him. He would find a way.

First though, he had a Warlord to yell at.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hello! Thank you so much to everyone who's keeping up with this story. Y'all are amazing.**


	5. Lesson 5: Free Flight

"My Lord!"

Nothing. The door remained shut.

Starscream glowered at the locking panel, which doubled as a one-way camera. "Master, please. We must converse."

Their current situation had swiftly become embarrassing. He'd stood outside Megatron's rooms for a breem now, feeling like a naughty sparkling who'd been ousted from the schoolroom. Every now and then, a troop of patrolling Eradicons would march by, and Starscream had to pretend to be engrossed in the contents of a datapad, pulled from his subspace. As if he were merely rehearsing what he wished to say to his Master, loitering of his own free will.

Unfortunately, he suspected it was the same squad who'd been stationed to guard this area of the top deck. They'd passed him at least five times.

Still, if they were wise to his ploy, they were smart enough not to mention it. He couldn't enter until granted permission. Starscream's control codes had been removed from this door lock many centuries ago.

"Master," he forced through his clenched teeth. "Far be it from your humble servant to question your judgement, but I hardly think _sulking in your quarters_ is becoming for a -"

"Starscream?"

Megatron's voice. Coming from… behind him?

_Scrap._

He hadn't been in his quarters. Which meant he now had a quarter-joor of footage logged on his door-cam, starring Starscream as he alternatively wheedled and threatened him for entrance.

Starscream's shoulders slumped, his wings following them. Could this day possibly get any worse?

He slipped the datapad into his subspace, not quite meeting his Master's eyes. All the curses he'd practised in his head (the accusations, the spark-sizzling _fury_ of the scorned) now evaporated.

"My liege,” he said, voice scratching at the bottom of his register. “Can we... talk?"

Megatron didn't reply. But he clunked up to Starscream - walking easier; must've made that second trip to the medbay - and placed his clawed servo on the door lock.

Starscream had to pancake flat to the frame to give the larger mech room to pass. But the door didn't hiss shut in his face, and he took that as incentive to follow.

What a long time it had been, since Starscream saw the interior of Megatron's cabin. It hadn't changed much. Still simple, borderline minimalist. None of the late Senate's ostentatiousness, no meaningless frippery. It was a visual ode to Megatron's refusal to be corrupted by his power.

Starscream wasn't fooled. He knew better than anyone how far the Mighty Megatron had fallen - even if the old bucket-head refused to admit it.

He slunk over the threshold, lip curling at the subtle alterations that had been introduced in the vorns since the last time he awoke from recharge, draped over Megatron's chest, thick digits tracing a path between his wings. There was a new desk, free of clawmarks. Similar scratches had been buffed out of the doors, the wall. Gone was any hint that _they_ had ever been a _them._

Of course, there were other changes - minor things, like the new sheet of malleable berth-metal, faintly dented with the impression of Megatron's wide-load aft. The upgraded light-strips, which kept the cabin at mid-level luminosity, perfect for a miner-build's eyes. But those alterations didn't pertain to Starscream, and thus he paid them little heed.

"Master," he said. "About our lessons."

The Warlord stopped, turned, glared. He stood over Starscream, shadow thick as tar, flowing out into the hall beyond. The door pinged shut, cutting them off from the corridor, and that shadow instead rose _above_ him, a featureless doppelganger cast against the steel, trapping Starscream on all sides.

"Did Soundwave not inform you?" the giant mech rumbled. "You have been relieved of your duties."

Starscream refused to let his fists shake. "I am merely _surprised_ that you saw fit to send Soundwave in your stead, my Lord."

"And I am surprised you think yourself worthy of a dismissal from my own glossa. Truly, Starscream, your arrogance knows no bounds."

Starscream opened his mouth, retort primed and at the ready. Then, reluctantly, swallowed it.

“You always let me live,” he murmured. The truth of the words revealed themselves to him as he spoke them, as if he too were listening to another mech speak. “No matter what I do, no matter the danger I pose to your person. You belittle and you strike me, and I rise up against you, again and again. And yet you never finish it, not completely.”

If Megatron was surprised by the _non sequitur_ , he didn’t show it. “I know the limit of your capabilities. Your futile efforts to snuff my spark amuse me.”

Bull-slag. Starscream could name several occasions where Megatron only escaped by pure chance, where Starscream's claws would’ve closed around the old mech’s throat cabling if only the universe had spun in his favor.

Well. A few occasions. Maybe one or two.

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

“Dear Starscream, it matters little whether or not you _believe_ the world to be flat and the stars to revolve around us. It is round, and we spin around them.”

Spare him the celestial rhetoric. Starscream stepped past Megatron, deeper into the cabin, towards the berth he’d once known better than his own. He let his claws dance along the edge of that pristine desk.

Would Megatron hit him, if he dared scratch an incision, renew his mark?

Possibly. It wasn’t worth the risk.

"Did you only let me live,” he mused, vocals soft as velvet, “because you thought that, if you left it long enough, I'd spread my legs and let you frag me again?"

Success. Megatron looked stumped. His eyes and mouth formed perfect circles.

Starscream pushed the point. "Well? Did you?"

His claws swept the desk. Mapping where Megatron bent him face-forwards and batted apart his thighs. Huffed a warm, moist ex-vent over his aft while he licked up, patient and slow as the tides, into the soaked silk of Starscream's valve.

It was a good memory. A shiver of arousal threaded his tank like rope coiling around his innards, strangling him from within.

Starscream banished it. Couldn’t get distracted.

Megatron must be suffering an internal crisis of his own. His ugly, battle-scarred face flashed through a medley of emotions, before he shook his helm - as if to rattle them loose - and caught Starscream's arm.

“Fool. It was never just about the fragging.”

Starscream flinched, instinctive - but although Megatron held his limb captive, his huge servo made no move to crush. “That’s not what I asked.”

“I did not think you would stoop so low as to fish for compliments.” Megatron drew up, the better to sneer down at Starscream through the metres that separated their heights. “Do you want me to tell you that, on your good days, you are an asset? A halfway competent Air Commander?”

“ _Halfway_ competent?”

Megatron bypassed the squawk. “That you provide me with an edge against my foes? That, when your processor is not obsessing over ways to bring about my demise–“

“Me? Master, I would never –“

“- You are actually supremely _cunning?_ That I chose _you_ to be my Second Command, not Soundwave, not any other mech in this army, the vast majority of whom are both stronger and more loyal than you? Not because you are beautiful, not because you’re a tolerable lay –“

“ _Tolerable?_ ”

“But because, despite everything, I still hold a sliver of respect for you?”

The whole while, he held Starscream’s wrist, claws linked around the thin limb and the missile. The gesture was deceptively delicate; Starscream didn’t dare yank away.

He could hardly believe his audials. Had Megatron truly said all that – spilled it into the open, bared to the world?

“Because,” Megatron finished, “I still believe that somewhere within you, there is a capacity for greatness?”

Big words, from a freedom-fighter turned tyrant.

Starscream clenched his captive fist. “Yes, well. How I wish I could say the same for you.”

Mistake. He regretted the words as soon as they left him. He'd pushed too far, like he always did; digging his claws into any vulnerability shown. And, like always, there would be consequences.

Megatron’s expression changed. It didn’t warp around a snarl, his lipplates cracking open to reveal serrated teeth. It _settled._ Like a river solidifying into ice, stiffening into something colder, unfeeling.

Then he squeezed.

Starscream gasped. His arm plates buckled, the steel crushing the tender protomesh beneath. His missile warped – luckily, Megatron had not seen fit to grab it by the explosive tip.

Megatron’s other fist swung up high above him. Ready to come flying down.

This was where Starscream cringed. They had it all planned out, the two of them. Scripted, choreographed, rehearsed: down to the last shiver and mewl.

Starscream pushed, Megatron snapped. Starscream pleaded, Megatron caved.

Not today.

Today, Starscream did not cower. He did not cry. He held his wings up, brittle and stiff, and he waited.

 _Come on,_  he thought; screamed it in the cavern of his mind.  _Come on, already, you rustbucket, you Quintesson-spawn, you ignorant giant galoot._ Hit _me._

No taunts. No tears. It meant he had clear vision, the better to see Megatron surrender.

The Warlord's sigh was all that struck him: a hot burst of air that swelled and receded over Starscream’s plates. His fist dropped from its zenith. He released Starscream, leaving the prints of his claws stamped into his missile and arm.

Starscream had to concentrate, so as not to click the trigger and send the wonky projectile flying. He might be able to pass it off as an accident – even as Megatron’s own fault – but he’d be as likely to offline himself as his Master.

“I loved you, once,” he heard himself say.

Megatron still stood close enough for Starscream to feel his warmth. “I know.”

Starscream couldn’t look at him. “You _ruined_ it.”

“I know.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

Megatron considered. His vents were slow, steady, his posture as collected as Starscream was overtensed and shaking.

“No,” he said, eventually. “But you are not ready to hear me say it.”

“To say what?”

“That I have my regrets. For my treatment of you. For this divide between us, which I allowed to fester and grow.”

Starscream scrunched his optics shut. His swallow hurt him, throat cables bulging thickly around all the words he wouldn’t permit himself to release.

When he spoke, it came out stiff and stilted: “Permission to be dismissed, Master?”

Megatron retreated. A single step, that was all, but he might as well have crossed lightyears. He tapped the locking panel, up above Starscream’s head, and the vast door rushed open as if eager to have him gone.

Starscream empathised. If he left any faster, he’d have been running – but Megatron's call of his name drew him up short. "Starscream?"

“Yes, Master?”

“You will inform Soundwave of tomorrow’s lesson plan.”

Starscream’s wings drooped. He should’ve expected as much, after this humiliating display. “Yes, Master.”

“Ask for his input, attend to his words. Make necessary adjustments.” Megatron faced away, claws interlaced behind his back. A small scuff of paint from Starscream’s missile had transferred, marring his grey hand with red. It looked rather like organic blood. “Then meet me on the flight deck at first light.”

The door hissed shut in Starscream’s gobsmacked face.

“Yes, Master,” he managed.

Then, spark hammering, processor whirling, he turned, ignoring the lollygagging vehicon patrol, and pattered towards the medbay. He had no idea how he was going to pass off the handprint in his arm as an accidental injury, and by this point, he was too tired to try.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Next morning, he onlined his optics to the glimmer of sun through his cabin’s outwards-facing portal window (a necessity for any Seeker).

Wait. Scrap.

_Megatron said first-light._

Fraggit! He hadn’t calibrated his internal chronometer the night before. In fact, he’d been so droopy that even Knock Out had taken pity on him, hammering out the dings in his arm and fitting him with a new missile with nary a word.

The look in the medic's optics was almost _too_ soft. Almost like he _felt sorry for him._

Ridiculous. Whatever scenario Knock Out’s overactive processor might have strung together was a figment of his imagination. Starscream neither wanted nor required the medic’s pity.

He might though, if he was any later to his and Megatron's rendezvous.

No time for a shower – luckily, he wasn’t yet dusty enough to require one. He would definitely be hitting the racks when he got back however, if this lesson went according to plan. The atmosphere of this planet was fetid, choked with muck and particulates. Even their  _fuel_ was made of organics - long dead, which made the practice of burning their fossilised remains all the more disturbing. 

Starscream shambled upright, forcing his processor out of its nightly defrag-state. He felt woozier than he’d like, so he recalibrated, one hand on his berth to steady himself, and strutted for the door only once the room had stopped spinning.

Hm. Knock Out had said something about the potential dangers of helm injuries, hadn’t he? Well, Starscream had paid him enough visits, as of late. If his processor was sprouting a glitch, it could at least have the decency not to render him unresponsive until  _after_ he’d finished with Megatron.

It was as he hurried to the lifts that Starscream realised he was _looking forwards_ to this. A flight, with no real mission attached to it, except to keep his Master in the air.

He just prayed Megatron didn't use this opportunity for _more talking._

His Master awaited him on the top deck. Starscream expected a snap of his designation, a snide comment about tardiness, possibly even a backhand. It didn't come. The only tension in the air came from his own relays, which hummed with panicky charge as he tiptoed up behind Megatron, painfully aware of the sharp, staccato _clinks_ of his pedes.

"Master, my apologies -"

"Are you ready, Starscream?"

"I, uh. Yes?"

"Then by all means." Megatron spread his claws towards the horizon, as if he were pulling it towards them: the sun's disc still tinged dawn-red where it kissed the horizon, luminous as a Decepticon's eye. "After you."

Unprecedented. Starscream blinked. “I – you want me to… Lead our flight?”

His pitch edged up an octave with incredulity. Megatron raised a brow. "Surely that is orthodox, as teacher?"

"Well, yes, but -"

"Did you not wish to?"

“What? I - of course, I – I mean, thank you, Master. For this… _privilege._ ”

Megatron snorted.  “A privilege that shall be rescinded if you waste any more time grovelling.”

Starscream hopped out of his bow, post-haste. Such a rare opportunity was not to be wasted. 

“Very well, Master," he said, taking a pace to the rear. "Follow me.”

He sprung into a neat transformation, and heard the clumsier clanks as his student emulated. Megatron's thruster boomed: a healthy, thunderous roar that made thoughts of a certain blue-painted trinemate flicker at the front of Starscream's processor.

Unwanted, unneeded. He cast them away.

He angled back, banking and decelerating until he and Megatron flew side by side. "Where did you wish to go?"

A tinge of amusement colored Megatron's voice. "As I said, Starscream. After you."

He was allowed to select their destination, too? Part of Starscream flipped in joy, spark turning excited loop-the-loops in his chest.

A larger part was terrified.

Clearly, this was a ploy. What did Megatron want? Yesterday's conversation commandeered the bulk of Starscream's short-term memory reserves (understandable, although Starscream  _wished_ his processor hadn't lingered  _quite_ so long on the buff-work on the Warlord's shapely thighs). Whatever the old mech's motive, Starscream wasn't sure he wished to find out.

Megatron must've realized that Starscream had no intention of returning to his berth any time soon. And yet, he was maintained this farce of tolerance! Did he think Starscream so easily fooled? So stupid that he would fall for a deception - for what else could any hint of  _remorse_ from the Slagmaker be?

Starscream did his best to clamp down on such pointless pontification. He didn't know the answers, and ruminating on them wouldn't get him any closer to them. This was a chance to fly free, to demonstrate to his Master the true meaning of being airborne, nothing beneath you but open, empty sky! Starscream intended to make the most of it.

"West," he said, eventually. "Out over the oceans. If - if that pleases my Lord, of course."

"I look forwards to it." Megatron carefully diverted a little power from his thruster, letting Starscream take point. He even managed not to stall himself. Starscream was grudgingly impressed. "I find that this world, puny though it may be, looks markedly better from the air."

" _Everything_ looks better from the air."

"I would disagree. Some things were made to be appreciated up close."

"Only other fliers," said Starscream, dismissive. "And they can join you as you dominate the skies."

"Indeed," said Megatron. He lagged a little further to Starscream's rear. "They can."

Starscream entertained the notion that Megatron was hanging back to put his fusion cannon to use, to melt his thrusters and send him into a death spiral, down-down-down to meet the sea. Yet there was no burn, no agony coursing through him, no warning pop-ups cluttering his HUD.

Just... _one_ warning pop-up. Starscream frowned at it.

That shouldn't be there. Something about faulty balance calibration?

Curse that Cliffjumper. Still, whatever fault had been boxed into Starscream's processor, it didn't seem in any imminent danger of knocking him out the air.

"We might as well discuss your in-flight displays en route," he told Megatron, banishing the pop-up to worry about later. "Let's start with the altimeter, and work down from there."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The flight went well _._ Which was to say, neither of them crashed, conversation subjects remained within the professional margins of flight teacher and student, and Megatron hadn’t made a single threat against Starscream’s continued function.

The sea glittered. The shallow waters were often ill with oil and bobbing islands of plastic, but this far from the fleshies’ so-called civilisation, Starscream could almost appreciate the view.

Not a single hint of human life. Far beneath the surface, his sensors picked up on something mobile: an Earthling creature larger than he was, possibly even of a size with Megatron. It cruised along, untroubled, swallowing vast mouthfuls of water at a time.

It ignored them. Starscream returned the courtesy.

He sunk down, close to the rolling waves. Then, carefully, dipped a wing.

It cut through the water, parting it in a sparkling valley. Spray fanned his nosecone. It was saline; long immersion would lead to rust damage. But a few little splashes couldn’t hurt.

Megatron seemed to agree. He emulated Starscream - a little slower, a little clumsier, yet no less confident for it. The reflections of the water glanced off the chassis of his Cybertronian jet-form, imbuing the grey metal with light. He carefully rolled, dipping the other wing in turn, scything a new channel in the sea.

No words passed between them. Given their track record, as of late, that was for the best.

Starscream couldn’t smile in his alt-mode, yet a lightness buoyed up inside him, nevertheless.

They flew on, executing simple manouevers. Starscream yawed, trusting Megatron to follow. Nothing too fancy: that damaged balance-gyro report flashed up every now and then, and if he upset Megatron’s tanks by guiding him through too many barrel rolls, he didn’t want to deal with the fall-out.

He only realised how much time had passed when Soundwave’s name flashed up on his HUD. No message attached – not that Starscream expected one. But the TIC's purpose was clear.

A snort from behind him. “It seems,” said Megatron, breaking the silence at long last, “that our Intelligence Officer is checking up on us.”

Starscream tried not to care too much about Megatron’s wording. _Our Intelligence Officer,_ not _Mine._

“Should we turn back, Master?”

He thought he did a decent job at keeping the disappointment in his voice at bay. The sun was clambering up to its peak, and the ocean spread to infinity on all sides. Though it glittered on the surface, reflecting the light of Earth's single, puny star, Starscream sensed the black fathoms beneath. It was as close to space as he had ever found on a terrestrial planet: empty, haunting, beautiful. He liked to think he might fly over it forever, and never see another organic again.

Megatron’s engines rumbled. “In a joor,” he decided. “Soundwave can wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Sorry for the wait, as usual! I'm an exhausted bee.**


	6. Lesson 5: Free Flight (cont'd)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **We earn our M-rating!! Again. Self-service ahoy.**

He retired to his room at midday, while this world's weak yellow sun burnt high in the sky. If only he could blame the fuzziness in his processor on Cliffjumper's fist.

The morning had been... pleasant. Such experiences were rare, where Megatron was concerned.

 _I still believe that somewhere within you, there is a capacity for greatness._ Those had been Megatron's words. And while long experience had taught Starscream to mistrust them - surely, Megatron would only foist such compliments upon in him if he desired something in return! - Megatron had made no more advances, no more demands.

Certainly, there had been no more spark-swelling kisses, the sort that smoldered his tank like fouled energon, and made him furious in all the wrong and right ways. For all intents and purposes, Megatron had been the perfect gentlemech on their little joy-flight. He'd even _thanked Starscream after they landed._

It was, Starscream decided, clinking into his personal washracks and setting the solvent level to a gentle solution that should eat through the dust and saltspray on his plating, highly suspicious.

He'd told Megatron he wouldn't be crawling back to his berth anytime soon. He'd made it _very_ fragging clear.

And Megatron... Had accepted it. Without causing Starscream _much_ in the way of undue damage. He’d even proceeded to treat him as if he were a mech worthy of holding a conversation with, and…

Starscream’s jaw champed. _Pathetic._ For a mech of his standing to suckle on such scraps of affection, and draw any nutrition forth! What did a kind word do, to make up for the dent Megatron crushed into his arm last night? What of all the dents that proceeded it?

 _You have more pride than this,_ he snarled, in the privacy of his mind. _You are Air Commander Starscream, Winglord of Vos. You will not be tamed by a few sweet nothings from the beast who makes you call him 'Master'!_

Unfortunately, while his helm made the sensible choice and agreed that they would never again deign to have any part of Megatron’s anatomy within grinding distance, his cooling fans didn’t get the memo.

Starscream groaned as they whirred to life.

His processor replayed Megatron cutting through the surf, a force of pure might. The rumble of his jets tremoring the waves.

It produced an alternate scenario, whereupon Starscream had flown up to him and twisted beneath. Rubbed his cockpit lasciviously on Megatron’s undercarriage in that way of hungry young Seekers. Where Megatron responded...

Stupid. Childish, imbecilic.

Megatron wouldn't understand the gesture, much less the offer it contained. And Starscream, for all the conflicted heat that had sunk through his frame when Megatron kissed him, wouldn't want him to take him up on it.

Their flame guttered out, long ago. Why reignite it, when Starscream would be the only one burnt?

He stepped beneath the spray. Tilting his head, he let the solvent pour into the crevice of his collar-armor. The warm liquid welled up and over, soaking his neck-cables, draining into all those hard-to-reach nooks and crevices where his armor closed over his protoform.

His wings fluttered, flicking droplets in all directions. He cupped handfuls of the turquoise solvent, rubbing it over his faceplates until they felt clean again.

Bathing had been a communal pleasure, on Vos. But there were no true Seekers left to wash wings with, and Starscream did not deign to join the public washracks with the common drones.

He rubbed up and down his arms, over the newly-hammered forearm guard where Megatron had tried to crush his wrist. His claws lingered there a moment, brushing the head of his replaced missile. Then continued, up and over his chest plates, around his insignia, alighting flickers of feedback through his sensory array.

 

_Megatron, gliding after his contrails, clumsily emulating each manoeuvre._

 

Starscream dug talons into the seams between his exposed tank tubing, ensuring any grime washed away.

 

_Megatron, dodging the eruption of spray from the great whale’s blowhole, returning dripping and snarling to Starscream's side._

 

Starscream smoothed a handful of solvent over his thighs, trickles snaking over sleek silver plates.

 

_Megatron's silence when Starscream dared snigger – followed by a grumbling ex-vent, rather than pain._

 

Starscream rinsed the point where his armor cuved back on itself, leaving the protomesh of his inner thighs exposed. A thin layer of metal separated his claws from his vital energon lines. It was a necessary vulnerability, for one whose battle tactics focused on aerial speed - and yet, when he trusted his partner, nothing warmed him faster than attention to those tender, dark gray stripes.

Once, he couldn't help but recall, he had trusted Megatron.

 

_Megatron this morning, on the flight deck, one hand open to encompass the clouds..._

 

Starscream sighed. He rested his helm back against the wall of the shower, shutting his optics and listening to the rhythmic beat of the solvent over his plating, the camber on the tiled floor.

 

_'After you, Starscream'._

 

Bastard. This was all _his_ fault.

Starscream ran the very tips of his claws up and down. Lightly. So lightly. Not rough enough to scratch the surface.

Then he repeated it, a little harder.

The rush of sensation made his hips arch from the wall of their own accord. His spark pulsed, his core clenched, sensory system sparkling with current.

Perhaps he could...? Megatron had given him a joor to refuel before returning to the Bridge to resume the day's activities. That was time enough to _take off the edge,_ as young mechs called it.

The solvent thundered around him, a curtain that parted him from the world. He was just… attending to his needs, that was all. It'd been so long since he had a long, free flight like that, no orders belted into his commlink, no mission to complete. Just himself and the cold cut of the wind, and Megatron, and -

No. This wasn't about Megatron. This, for once, was _all about Starscream._

He didn't think about Megatron, as he kneaded his solvent-striped legs.

He didn't think about Megatron, as he slid back his pointed modesty panel.

He didn't even think about him as he stroked down over his spike housing, ghosting the tips of his claws against the soft, slickening mesh of his valve.

It took an irksome amount of effort.

Starscream shook his helm. He rubbed his spike housing, quick and efficient, the circular motions sending sharp stabs of pleasure into his abdomen. He was here to get off, not pamper himself.

His spike pressurized obediently, nosing forth into his fist. If only all his underlings could be so biddable. It was a streamlined handful, slim and silver as the rest of him, a line of red biolights flickering along its underside.

Starscream shuffled on the slippery, solvent-splattered floor, bracing himself with his back to the wall. The movement made his valve twinge. Empty, needing.

 

' _Greedy little thing', Megatron used to purr, lubricant bridging his lips to Starscream's anterior node. His glossa furled out, lapping it away. 'Just like the rest of you...'_

 

Only – no. Starscream wasn't thinking about that.

Like, as he gathered a handful of solvent to ease the slide of his spike through his fist, he wasn't thinking about the rare occasion Megatron consented to let Starscream crawl over his supine form, straddling his broad chest to tease the tip of his spike on those scarred gray lipplates.

Or even when Megatron growled and flipped them, pinning Starscream to the berth with his hips, lowering his great weight inch by torturous inch...

The plush squeeze of Megatron's valve around him, the only softness on his giant frame. The way he would hold Starscream motionless, relinquishing not an inch of control as he ground his thin wrists together in one giant hand and he rode him slow enough not to crush...

Starscream _hissed._ He pulled at his spike, shunting the overlapping gray plates roughly against one another.

This whole _not thinking about Megatron_ thing wasn't going so well.

His cooling fans span on their highest setting, a constant audible whirr. The air around Starscream heated; the solvent evaporated in sour-scented steam. He barely noticed, spike dripping, valve clenching slickly over itself. Need tingled under his slim gray plates.

"Frag you, Megatron," he hissed, and dropped his spike to attend to the wetness beneath.

More memories, flitting through his processor one after the next. A slideshow reel of copulation, gathered from across the millennia.

Megatron enjoyed valve stimulation on occasion, but Primus, did he love using his spike. Specifically, using it to make a writhing mess of Starscream.

Slipping the curved head _just_ between his folds, not deep enough to clench down on. Rubbing along the sticky seam of his valve lips, grazing his clitnub with each measured stroke. Pushing his thighs into a split, until even Starscream's flexible hip gyros strained. Huffing hot air on his ailerons, growling that if he wanted Megatron's spike, all he had to do was _beg..._

But begging Megatron had taken on less fun connotations, since Starscream first had to do it for his life.

Starscream gnawed his lips. He weighed that ugly thought against the promise of release – then, decisively, cast it away.

He pushed slicked fingers two-together into his valve. Stretching, searching, _digging_ for that old, half-forgotten pleasure, how Megatron (not _Master,_ never _Master_ back then) made him arch until his spinal struts burned and live up to his designation, wailing his name - "Megatron, Megatron, _Megatron, please..._ " - at the skies...

" _Oh..._ "

It built and burst inside him, a hot throb that raced up his spike and simmered on each stimulated node of his valve.

Starscream's back tightened. His helm knocked on the wall, his mouth dropped wide. Some solvents splattered his tongue – sour, soapy – but he hardly cared.

His optics shuttered; his knees locked so he didn't fall. His heeled peels skidded in the solvents, transfluid pulsing from spike and valve in slick, sweet spurts, drenching his trembling claws.

 _Megatron,_ he thought, just once more. Then his wobbling ankle struts admitted defeat, and deposited him in the draining puddle of solvent and his own fluids.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

For a breem, Starscream did very little.

He sat there, optics closed, shuddering as his sensitized spike retreated into its housing and his panels slid slowly, stickily closed. Eventually, the beat of solvent on his wings grew bothersome, and so he reached up and shut off the shower.

Then he sat there a little longer.

He felt... Well, he didn't know how he felt.

That, perhaps, was the worst part of all.

He couldn't stay on the floor forever - tempting as it may be. His chrono bleeped, reminding him he was scheduled to take over the next Bridge shift, and that he hadn't yet refueled.

Starscream sighed. Then, legs numbed from the intensity of the overload, he used the wall to lever himself to his feet like a mech twice his age.

If Megatron had fragged him, his valve would be _burning_ right now. A spark-deep ache, as if he'd stretched Starscream to fit only himself…

Once, Starscream enjoyed being reminded of Megatron's spike with every step he took from his berth. Now, the thought of having another mark of his ownership on him, _in him,_ as well as the color of his optics and the crest on his chest? Well.

Starscream didn't know if he wanted to sprint to Megatron's cabin and create some new memories, or crawl to his waste disposal unit and purge.

Neither option was suitable, so Starscream rested his helm on the cool panelled wall of the shower until he could ex-vent without a shake.

Then he righted himself, dried off, and marched to the mess hall. If he couldn’t satisfy this angry twist of wants in his spark, perhaps sating a different sort of hunger would suffice.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Commander!” Knock Out hailed him from the table he’d commandeered in the mess hall, along with Breakdown and a couple of eradicon drones. Starscream slowed to a halt, narrowing his optics.

“What do you want?”

Knock Out unpeeled his cube with a smack of his lips. “To congratulate you, of course! You haven’t been in the medbay in almost a whole cycle. I was starting to think you’d offlined.”

Breakdown hid his grin in his own meal, and the eradicons were wise enough to stifle their smirks. This meant Starscream only had to glare at the doctor – which he did so, with gusto.

His initial plan – to enjoy a cube, then pay Knock Out a visit and demand that he tweak his malfunctioning balance gyro – lost its appeal.

“Your commentary is, as ever, unappreciated,” he growled.

“And here I thought you kept visiting so that you could enjoy my scintillating conversation!”

“As if. Welding your mouth shut would make a major improvement to your bedside manner.”

Knock Out clutched his chest plates. “Breakdown, fetch the defibrillator. I’m struck to the spark.”

Starscream rolled his eyes. He made to step away from the table, aiming for his quarters, where he could sip on his cube in peace. The squeak of a chair prevented him. He turned back, to find Knock Out, grin shifted into something more welcoming, nudging it further out with his pede.

“Come, Commander. One should never drink alone.”

“I’m a jet,” muttered Starscream, for what felt like the thousandth time. “We drink high-grade in order to _fly…_ ”

“And there’s no reason,” said Knock Out smoothly, “why you shouldn’t do it in company.”

There was no way out. Starscream clenched his left fist – the other being occupied with the cube – growled, and sank mutinously to rest on the proffered seat.

Knock Out chuckled. “No need to make it look as if I have a blaster to your head. Relax a little, won’t you?”

Starscream permitted a soupcon of tension to dip from his wings.

Knock Out waited a further minute, blinking patiently, then sighed. “I suppose that’s the best we’re getting. How go your lessons with our Lord and Master?”

Why would he ask such a thing? Had Soundwave put him up to this – gathering information, searching for that crack in Starscream’s motivation? That splinter of resentment that would, once more, give Megatron the excuse to wrap his claws around Starscream’s throat?

Knock Out leaned back. “Woah. No need to look like a hunted turbofox.”

How dare he liken him to such a beast! “I am not –“

“Anyway,” continued Knock Out, as if he didn’t hear, “enough small talk. We were just speaking of your impending ascension to the Decepticon throne.”

Starscream’s jaw dropped. He instinctively hunched, making himself a smaller target, scanning the rafters for Laserbeak, who would – of course – be reporting his response to this treasonous offer back to Soundwave. “I – I – what?”

“Quit rattling him, Doc,” grumbled Breakdown. He leant over the table as if he planned on patting Starscream’s quivering shoulder, as he would with any common drone – always did cultivate a curious fondness for the fools, though Starscream couldn’t fathom why. Luckily, for the sake of his faceplates, he took one look at Starscream's scowl and thought better of it.

“Knock Out’s just talking about Megatron’s upcoming off-world mission,” he said, digits curling back under themselves and retreating out of Starscream’s claw-swiping range. “Figured you’d step up as Lord Regent for the duration, is all.”

Starscream’s mouth had yet to close. It was only his awareness that if he gaped much longer, oral fluid would start to drool out, that forced him to shut it.

“W- _what?_ ”

Knock Out leaned conspiratorially in. “Surely you know. Megatron is intending to leave Earth on a long-term exploratory space flight, and…” He trailed off, taking in the shock inscribed in every line on Starscream’s faceplates. “Oh. It appears you, um, didn’t know. Well. That makes this a little awkward.”

Starscream wasn’t listening. Starscream barely registered the _words._

Megatron was leaving the Decepticons under his command. And Starscream heard this first from the _ship’s medic?_ Who had been gossiping on the subject to a handful of _drones?_

His wings flared up behind him. Inexcusable. Utterly, infuriatingly, _inexcusable._

“Excuse me,” said Starscream, pushing to his pedes. Knock Out mirrored him, almost kneeing Breakdown in the process.

“Woah there, Commander! Please – don’t do anything rash – I became privy to the information through unconventional means – I swear, I had no idea that–“

His voice trailed off, no doubt because his processor failed to supply a finish to that sentence that wouldn’t grossly offend Starscream’s sensibilities. This was, quite simply, because there wasn’t one.

_I had no idea that Lord Megatron chose to share this intelligence with me, rather than you, his highest ranked officer._

_I had no idea that you were out of the loop._

_Not in the know._

_Left out of the circle._

Starscream’s mind supplied all these alternatives, and more.

“Doc’s got a point,” sounded Breakdown’s low rumble. Starscream paid it as little attention as he usually afforded the rest of the mech. “Don’t want you coming back to the medbay in little pieces.”

He left the _again_ unsaid. But Starscream heard it, and he was convinced that the watching eradicons and vehicons did, too.

No. He couldn’t afford to lose his cool here, slash Breakdown across the boxy chestplates for his impudence. If what they said was true, he needed to foster allegiances, not grudges.

Starscream turned before the temptation could overcome him, wings drawn up tight and high. “If anyone here is assigned to the next Bridge shift, find occupation elsewhere.”

His voice was quiet, hoarse, still a little staticky from that magnificent overload – but it carried. Starscream left his untouched cube of energon on the table, and went to shout at his Master.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hope you enjoyed!! Please leave kudos and comments <3**

**Author's Note:**

> **Thank you for every comment/kudos. I only write for feedback, so if there isn't any, I won't update! Concrit is welcomed, but please be aware that I don't edit/proofread my fic to anywhere near the same standards to which I hold my original fiction, being a Busy Adult with little time.**


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